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Subsection Meet Sees 18 Cougars Advance
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Even though it didn’t rain on Saturday, Cougar runners joined with other competitors to run the ‘rain course’ at the subsections in Angels Camp on Nov. 4.

“It did look like it would rain any moment most of the day,” said Escalon head coach Rick Heflin.

Starting off the morning were the freshman boys. Connor Lambeth placed 33rd in 13:27, which was good enough for a section qualifying spot.

“It takes five members to be a team and we only entered three runners,” Heflin said of the frosh boys race. “We only had two frosh-soph girls, Tess Bedell in 17:25 and Brittany Gonzales in 19:08. Both are their best times for this course.”

Sophomore boys, with 15 runners in that group for Escalon, placed second to Bret Harte. Braiden Vega paced the effort, placing fifth overall in 12:08.9. Ethan Resendez finished sixth and Andres Cornejo took seventh overall.

“In the JV race, only six teams qualify. The JV races are divisions 3, 4 and 5. Only one Division 4 team made it and that was the team that beat us by one point, Christian Brothers,” explained Heflin. “We placed seventh out of 20.”

The Cougars will have three individuals go on to the section meet at the JV level; Xavier Chavez, Jayden Lopez and Josh Teske.

“Varsity girls did not qualify but we did run very well,” Heflin said. “The girls placed 16th out of 23.”

Jackie Lau was first across the line for Escalon in 22:30.2, with Morgan Dominguez second for the Lady Cougars and Lizeth Calderon third.

The varsity boys qualified for the section meet by placing eighth overall in the race. Gabe Romero, 17:04.9, paced the team and finished 35th overall. Close behind was Sam Fletcher, 38th. Also running in the 17s were Rex Robbins, Juan Lopez, Troy Bedell and Alex Jimenez, with Emiliano Ramirez rounding out the varsity squad, covering the course in 18:08.9.

“In varsity the top 10 teams advance to sections. We ran much faster than last year,” noted Heflin. “The competition is so tough in Division 4 this year. Only two teams in our league qualified in varsity boys to go on, us and Ripon. At the end of the day, we qualified 18 runners to go to sections.”

The section meet will be on Friday, Nov. 10 in Folsom.