Laguna ready for CIF final

The Laguna Beach High boys’ and girls’ cross-country teams will run after CIF Southern Section Division IV titles Saturday when they compete at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut.

At Saturday’s CIF prelims race, Laguna’s boys’ team won its heat while the girls’ team finished fourth in its heat.

?

Boys

The Breakers won the second of two heats in their division, winning a 16-team heat with a team time of 1 hour 27 minutes 25 seconds, despite not having No. 1 runner Matt Neev, No. 2 Blake Hofmeister and No. 4 Tommy Newton-Neal in the competition.

Casey Finnerty was Laguna’s top finisher in a time of 16:59, which earned the senior a ninth-place finish. Senior Jordan Festa (17:13) was 14th, junior Richard Mattingley (17:36) 25th, senior Rand Hardy (17:44) 28th, junior Jake Johnston (17:53) 34th and junior Alex Young (18:02) was 39th.

Laguna was the top seed in the heat and finished with 100 points to narrowly edge out second-place Morro Bay, which finished with 101 points.

“The race was just a qualifier, so I chose again not to race several of my top guys,” Laguna Coach Dave Brobeck said. “I rested my No. 1 (Neev), No. 3 (Hofmeister) and No. 4 (Newton-Neal) one final race. This weekend at CIF finals, we’ll try to take the training wheels off and have a great race.”

Top-ranked Big Bear won the first heat with a team time of 1:24.39.

?

Girls

Laguna finished with a team time of 1:48:30 and a team score of 109 to take fourth place in a five-team heat that was the third of three heats in the division.

Junior Kativa Strickland led the Laguna charge, finishing in 14th-place with a time of 21:05. Junior McKenna Nokes (21:28) was 18th, junior Gerry Artman (21:44) 24th, freshman Natalie Strickland (21:56) 27th, senior Melissa Lenker (2:17) 31st, junior Parker Yamasaki (22:38) 38th and freshman Marisa Merchant (23:25) was 47th.

Junior Catherine Hasbroouck of Nordoff won the heat in 19:14.

Oaks Christian topped the heat with a team time of 1:43.59.