Buchanan High’s Smith, Lowe sweep to CIF State cross country meet history

Buchanan High’s Corie Smith and Meagen Lowe have been pushing each other all year to reach this point, and all their work paid off Saturday at the CIF State Cross Country Championships.

Smith, a sophomore, and Lowe, a junior, pulled off the first 1-2 state meet sweep for Fresno-area runners in the girls Division I race at Woodward Park. Smith’s kick down the stretch powered her home in 17:16.7 with Lowe right behind in 17:19.8.

“It was a great race,” said Smith, second to Lowe at last week’s Central Section meet. “All the girls out here on my team and during the race were amazing. We all ran extremely hard.

“I was way more prepared and ready for this race than I was (last week). It was just great to come out here and do as well as I did. We were close the whole way until 800 (meters) left. We were neck-and-neck and I was just like, ‘It’s now or never time.’ I started pulling away and that was it.”

Smith placed fourth at state last year.

“It’s amazing to know that you can go from a couple of places back and about 10 seconds behind everybody to winning,” Smith said. “It’s amazing to see that all my hard work has paid off.”

As expected, the team title chase in the top girls division came down to Great Oak-Temecula and Buchanan. Great Oak topped the Bears for its sixth consecutive D-I championship.

Fatima Cortes (17:32.1) in fourth, Tori Gaitan (17:35.9), Sandra Pflughoft (17:55.7), Audrey Dang (18:23.8) and Arianna Griffiths (18:58.3) helped Great Oak finish with 71 points.

Smith, Lowe, Amanda Dolberg (18:29.3), Clare Hernandez (18:48.5) and Sydney Fox (19:10.6) led Buchanan to 103 points. The Bears join Great Oak as automatic qualifiers to the Nike Cross Country Nationals.

“Great Oak is an amazing team,” Smith said. “We knew that they were great competitors and to get second to them is amazing.”

Olivia Herrera (18:33.9) was 28th to help Clovis finish 12th as a team.

Great Oak captured its fourth consecutive boys D-I title. Carlos Carvajal led the way for the Wolfpack with a time of 15:23.0 while finishing eighth. They totaled 75 points to Roosevelt-Eastvale’s 90.

Justin Hazell of El Camino Real-Woodland Hills was the D-I individual winner in 15:03.8. Hayden Hansen of Buchanan was 21st in 15:38.4 to lead the Bears to ninth place as a team. Clovis North and Clovis placed 15th and 21st.

Monache was 17th in girls D-II and 18th among the boys. Redwood of Visalia was 22nd in girls D-II and Avenal 19th in boys D-IV.

Claudia Lane of Malibu set a course record with a time of 16:30.3 to win her second consecutive girls D-IV title. Foothill Tech-Ventura won its second straight girls D-IV team championship.

Elias Opsahl of Redlands East Valley won the boys D-II race in 15:16.9 and St. Francis-Mountain View the team title. Haley Herberg of Capistrano Valley-Mission Viejo’s time of 17:00.0 gave her the girls individual title and Claremont repeated as girls champion.

Liam Anderson of Redwood-Larkspur won the boys D-III race in 15:10.3 and West Torrance was the team champ. After finishing second last year, Gillian Wagner of Redwood-Larkspur won the girls race in 17:49.3; Campolindo-Moraga took the team title.

Anthony Grover of JSerra-San Juan Capistrano won boys D-IV in 15:31.5 and Cathedral-Los Angeles the team championship.

Evan Pattinelli (15:38.7) of Flintridge Prep-La Cañada/Flintridge won the boys D-V title, with University-San Francisco the top team. Rylee Bowen of Sonoma Academy was the girls champ in 18:17.9 and Flintridge Prep won the team crown for the fourth consecutive year.

This story was originally published November 25, 2017 at 10:27 AM with the headline "Buchanan High’s Smith, Lowe sweep to CIF State cross country meet history."