Buchanan girls, boys celebrate big days at section cross country finals

Buchanan High boys and girls cross country teams owned Woodward Park on Thursday.

For the first time since 2010, both captured Division I team titles at the Central Section Cross Country Championships. Next up: the CIF State meet, a week from Saturday at the same site.

“It’s just an outstanding day for the kids,” coach Brian Weaver said. “They had goals set from the beginning of the year. This is just one of the goals they wanted to achieve.

“That’s pretty exciting to have both the boys and girls be section champions. That says something about their hard work and their togetherness as one program.”

The girls, one of the top teams in the nation, grabbed five of the top 10 finishes and posted a combined time of 1:30:54.41 – second fastest in section history. Buchanan totaled 26 points, with Clovis (80) and McFarland (95) rounding out the top three.

“It’s really amazing,” said Meagen Lowe, who won individually in 17:18.30. “I know the guys have been working super hard. We’ve all been working really hard and to see it all pay off and we have this momentum going to the state meet … it’s just great.”

The boys placed three in the top 10 for their fifth title overall. Buchanan (52 points) was followed by Clovis North (70) and Clovis (109).

“We’re ecstatic right now,” said the Bears’ Hayden Hansen, fourth (15:50.05) in a race won by Stockdale’s Marcus Mota in 15:30.51. “It’s what we have always dreamed of ever since we got to high school our freshman year. It’s been out goal to get back on top in the Valley. It’s been a long time. We were ready.

“Once the season started, we just kept grinding all season long with this in our sight. We worked as a team this year. Out of my four years this is the most teamwork we’ve done – ever. From the beginning of the season, Coach said, ‘Run together as a team.’ We really stuck by that this year. We got faster every workout and stayed together all the way to this race.”

On the girls side, Lowe was pushed by teammate Corie Smith, second in 17:27.12.

“We do this in practice every day,” Lowe said. “It’s just me and her. We’re running together. It’s like nobody else is out there, just me and her. You just have to remember it’s still just a race and at the end you just have to give it your all.

“I know that she’s giving her all too. You just go out and run hard.”

Smith said it took teamwork to help the Bears win their second consecutive girls title and 20th overall.

“We knew that if we stick together the whole time our team would have a better chance of winning,” Smith said. “So we just stuck together for all of it until the last part where she started pulling away and I kind of just held myself back and let her go.”

The top three D-I boys and girls schools send their teams to the state championships. Other divisions advance two or three teams.

Lowe, Smith, Amanda Dolberg (18:32.47), Katie Nili (18:39.12), Sydney Fox (18:57.40), Clare Hernandez (19:06.99) and Alyssa Destasio (19:22.13) were Buchanan’s state qualifiers.

Olivia Herrera (18:20.52), Mckenna Lewis (18:50.83), Kiley Butchert (19:19.00), Megan Dean (20:00.91), Natalie Curtis (20:22.28), Jordyn Ohashi (20:35.50) and Kesha McDermott (20:49.02) made it for Clovis.

D-I individual girls qualifiers included Blayney Dolan of Clovis North and Rebeca Coronado of Bullard.

Monache (D-II) and Corcoran (D-IV) also were girls team champs. Imelda Suarez of Monache won the D-II race in 19:10.45 and Marilou Ruiz (19:24.79) made it a 1-2 finish for the Marauders.

Jessica Valles of Sunnyside won the D-III race in 19:29.58 and Sarah Renberg of Edison also qualified for state in the division.

Lindsay’s McKaylie Caesar (19:07.3) won the D-IV race, with Gabriela Jimenez of Fresno High among the individual qualifiers. Corcoran, Hanford West and Lindsay advanced as teams.

Caliska Avila of Washington won D-V in 21:03.57.

Buchanan is taking Hansen, Ryan Toto (16:11.57), Dustym McKenney (16:14.33), Kelly Brewer (16:15.22), Andrew Goff (16:27.72), Thor Swanson (16:41.70) and Bo Olsen (16:54.90) to state.

Clovis North advanced with Isaiah Galindo (15:40.41), Spencer Hauxhurst (16:15.21), Nicholas Carter (16:21.67), Thomas Allen (16:34.05), Charlie Swanson (16:41.70), Ethan Fusselman (16:51.59) and Reed Lienau (17:05.86).

Clovis’ team is Chris Watkins (15:45.19), Bryan Trujillo (16:22.66), Fernando Sandoval (16:23.31), Tyler Murphy (16:57.37) and Andrew Scherf (17:04.09).

Jared Falcone of Clovis East is a D-I qualifier; and Dinuba’s Jonathan Padilla and Oscar Perez and Sanger’s Mohamed Saleh made it in D-II, where Monache was the team champ led by individual runner-up Ivan Mendez (15:54.83).

Reedley and Dinuba also qualified as D-II boys teams.

Bryan Banuelos of Edison qualified for state in D-III, where Corcoran advanced while finishing second. Francis Orgill of Fresno qualified in D-IV, where Avenal and Memorial advanced as teams after finishing 1-2.

Chowchilla was the D-V boys team champ, and Garrin Schaap of Central Valley Christian won the individual race in 16:44.8.

This story was originally published November 16, 2017 at 7:01 PM with the headline "Buchanan girls, boys celebrate big days at section cross country finals."