The only action Escalon’s cross country team had this week was an invitational Saturday, Oct. 13 in Rocklin.

“Sickness, injuries and decisions really affected team strength this meet. Even though no team was at full strength at this meet, individuals stepped up and set personal records,” said coach Rick Heflin. “Cross country is such a team sport. I know most people think what we do is like a fun run on the weekend. Each person of our team competes and if one of the top runners is missing, our team score can change 40 to 50 points against us.”

The Saturday trip was a successful one in that those that did go made the trip worthwhile.

“I was very pleased that individuals that are not usually on the scoring team stepped up and had great performances,” Heflin noted. “Team scores were not that great but our runners went for it.”

Placing ninth in a very strong field was Briana Briones-Chavarria with a time of 19:53.

“This was the Brianna race because my only other varsity girl was Brianna Cerceda who ran a 28:38. She improved her time from the start of the season,” Heflin explained.

The varsity boys placed eighth out of 21 teams. Two starters were missing but the team stepped up to the challenge, the coach noted. Moises Grajeda and Gino Stern took off over 30 seconds for their personal bests to both score in the meet. Leading the pack were Juan Lopez, AJ Jimenez, and Emiliano Ramirez.

The frosh-soph girls placed third. Carla Cordova was the team’s top runner. The frosh-soph boys were led by Josh Corrales in a time of 13:55. They placed fifth overall. The JV boys placed 13th in a Division 1 race. The top two runners leading the group were Miguel Marmol and Daniel Luis.

“On dead legs from a hard week of training these runners posted some impressive times,” said Heflin. “This week the top runners travel down to the Mt. Sac invite in Walnut. This is one of the largest meets in the USA. We travel to Walnut to show our athletes how big running in our nation really is. The following week on Thursday (Oct. 25) is the league championship and Senior Night at Legion Park.”