The Torrance Cross Country team competed in their first league meet on Wednesday, September 27, on Torrance High’s campus. The team competed against the 6 other schools in their league: South High, North High, West High, El Segundo High, Da Vinci, and Lawndale. There are three league meets in the season, and the winning school is determined by the total points they score in all 3 league meets. The first league meet took place at Torrance HIgh and the next will take place at Palos Verdes’ course which is also known as Agony Hill. The final league meet will be held at West High School.
The Varsity boys and JV girls both placed first in the meet, the girls won by 20 points and the boys won by 8 points. Their coaches were very proud of the team and especially proud of the JV girls because this was the first time the JV girls had won in a league meet in a very long time. The team had gone over the course multiple times prior to the race, in order to make sure they were familiar with the course. Both the start and finish line were on the grass by the A building cafeteria. The runners had to run down the breezeway, pass the softball fields and even around the school. Torrance hasn’t held this meet at the school since their 2020 season, so the race was new to everyone except the returning seniors.
The race started off with the JV boys, which included sophomores, juniors, and seniors that were not on varsity. The JV boys did really well and finished in 2nd place. Mikah Tong (3rd place overall) finished at 17:19 and Raphael Noa (6th place) finished at 17:23. Mikah Tong was able to split up four of the West boys that were leading the race, helping the team score better. The next five Torrance boys finished one after the other, with Erik Jimenez (8th) at 17:35, Eric Schulz (9th) at 17:39, Ioan Evans (10th) at 17:43, Ren Nakanishi (11th) at 17:45, and Milo Guba (12th) at 17:51. The guys stayed together throughout the whole race and pushed each other to the finish.
The JV girls had an amazing race, despite some of the runners taking a wrong turn on the course. Although this threw off some of their times, the girls were able to pull through and get 1st place in the race. Rianna Abalos finished in 1st place, with a time of 21:38 and in 2nd place, Kira Jung finished with a time of 21:25. Annie Inoue finished in 8th place at 22:30, Isabelle Truchin (9th place) finished at 22:31.4, and Kristina Chaves (10th) finished at 22:31.7.
The Varsity girls had a goal to get in the overall top 4 of their race. The girls achieved their goal, finishing 3rd overall. Maya Okada (3rd place) scored first for the Torrance team, finishing at 19:04. Sofia Wessels (15th place) finished at 20:11, Riley Gibson (16th place) finished at 20:15, Alyssa Moreno (18th place) finished at 20:29, and Kayla Yonekawa (24th place) finished at 21:02.
The Varsity Boys finished in 1st place overall, with the top 3 Torrance boys finishing within seconds of each other. Ethan Wessels (4th place) finished at 16:01, Aidan Corcoran (5th place) finished at 16:02, and James Rivera (6th place) finished at 16:04. Juan Avellana (10th place) finished at 16:24 and Doyun Kim (11th place) finished at 16:27.
This race was a big event for the Torrance XC team as they showed the Pioneer League that they were a strong team and ready to compete this season. Many came out to support the runners such as family and friends, Maroon Monsoon and even Mr.Tachibana and Mr. Girgis. This was their home course, which made it more motivational for some runners to run fast and do well. With these amazing results, Torrance is ready to take on the next two league meets and possibly win as league champions. Their next league meet will be on October 11th at the Palos Verdes’ course, one of the hardest courses they will run this season. They will also be running at the Mt. Sac Invitational, one of the biggest meets of the season, on October 20th. With two challenging races coming up, the team knows they must put in good work into their training so that they can keep improving for future races.
