Irvine, CA — The Valencia Vikings cross country team braved the LA traffic to arrive at The Great Park in Irvine ready to race in the Woodbridge invitational. The largest cross country invitational in the country brought an electric environment and large completive fields to push our team to their limits. With a fast flat course winding through the soccer fields and near perfect weather, the Vikings were looking to deliver on their aspirations for season best performances. The novice boys started off the racing in a huge field of almost 250 athletes. Carlos Sagayap led the Vikings in 22:27 dropping over 2 minutes from his time last week at the Moorpark Invite. Gabriel Navaarro ran a huge PR dropping almost 6 minutes to finish in 23:38 with Luke Landress and Dillon Jenson also making huge improvements from their performances from last week. This group set the tone for the day as subsequent racers looked to capitalize on the conditions and push themselves to new levels. Valencia had 20 girls competing in the Novice race showing our depth in new blood! Nearly every Viking lady bettered their time from last week's Moorpark race, highlighting their commitment to consistency & team growth. Sophomore, Mariaesperanza Lopez showed her game face right from the start, leading the pack most of the race. She took second overall with a personal best of 21:07. Kayden Deschamps & Kylee Weber (in her debut race), worked together to post solid times; 22:25 & 22:27 respectively. 4th Viking, Macy Redin paced herself well and shaved nearly 2 minutes off last week's time at 23:24. In their debut races, Sophia Langer and Katie Dorman paced together for the first half of the race. Both girls have struggled with injuries as they are new to running. They posted solid times at 24:47 & 25:23 (5th & 6th Viking). To round out the top 10 Vikings in this race, showing true teamwork: 7th, Ariana Reyes Mccarthy(26:29), 8th Hayley Sykes (27:01), 9th Janani Prakash (27:03), 10th Leela Ramesh (27:07) all finished within 10 seconds of each other. *Some honorable mentions who improved from last week's race: Emily Downs: 7 minute improvement (27:28) Sadie Salgado: 4 minute faster (27:23) Emily Stimac: over 3 minutes faster (28:06) Irene Kim: shaved 5 minutes off her time (28:56) Dooren Yoon almost: 10 minutes faster (30:51) Olive Telegen: improved her time by 3 min (31:27) Krithi Ganti: 7 minutes faster (33:41) The field size swelled for the Frosh boys’ race as our Vikings lined up with over 400 other competitors. The quick start and the narrowing course buried much of the team and left them with work to do once the field spread out. Cash Klinger hung on to the lead group picking off runners in the later stages of the race to finish 8th in 16:18, dropping over a minute from his season best at 3 miles. Josiah Lee (18:57) and Hudson Lee (18:59) worked as a pair and consistently moved through the field. They were the leaders of our freshman pack with Luke Rezkallah (19:10), William Seo (19:20), Owen St.Clair (19:21) and Miles Frizado (19:23) just back and all improving significantly on their PRs. Adrian Gonzalez (19:44), Garret Bruemmer (20:04), Brixus Lopez (20:06), and Bennett Pauer (20:51) were not far of the Viking group also with new season bests. As this young group learns the ropes of racing, they are sure to continue their improvements and be a force to be reckoned with later this season and in future years. In the Freshman girls race, our 3 Vikings showed their strength & determination, all placing in the top 3rd of the pack. Emily Farrell looked strong from the start, but ran her own race, keeping the front runners in her sights. As the race unfolded she methodically started passing her competitors one by one. Emily was in second place with 100 yds to go, but had laser focus on first place, made an aggressive charge with everything she had and crossed the line taking the WIN. It was one of the most exciting finishes of the evening! Check out her post race interview linked below. Not far behind Emily was Emma Buchanan, running an excellent race and placing 15th out of 179 girls. She shaved almost two minutes off last week's time at 20:32. 3rd freshman Viking (48 overall) was Gwendalyn Weircioch. Gwen also improved her time by almost 2 minutes and barely made it to the race having played hard in a soccer game just hours before!! It was an impressive day for these 3 ladies out on the course. In the Sophomore Boys race the trend of season and lifetime best performances continued. At 17:23, Adam Sandoval was the first Viking across the line with a season best by 30s and 90s better than his PR last season. Nehemiah Pop was right behind at 17:30 with a debut performance this season 3minuted better than last! Jake Robideau must love the cool weather as he bettered his PR by over 3 min at 18:20. Brian Lumaya figured out his pacing to a much improved 19:46. With Connor Landress (20:36) and Michael Hatch (22:08) finishing the effort for the Vikes each with PRs of over a minute. We had two Vikings in the Sophomore Girls race. Liana Sushinsky & Zoe Baeza, both showed poise, patience and strength during their race. Liana Sushinsky ran awesome in last week's season opener at Moorpark and had another great performance at Woodbridge. Like Emily Farrell, Liana was calculated in her first mile, keeping the front pack of girls in her sights. As the race went on, Liana started picking off her competitors one by one to earn a place in the top 10 (8th place) and running under 20 min (19:57)! 2nd Viking, Zoe Baeza, in her 2nd cross country race ever, ran a solid time of 21:57 and placed 57th out of 200 girls. Incredible race for someone so new to the sport! Our duo of Justin Yuh and Damien Turner raced as a solid team in the Senior Boys race. As the evening darkened and the lights were turned on, they were easy to spot in their new yellow racing kits! They pushed each other through the 3 miles with Damien a bit stronger in the last 800m to finish at 18:48 with Justin Just behind at 19:03. Both boys improved almost a minute from last week! Like the Sophomore Race, the Vikings had 2 girls entered in the Junior race, veteran runners Valentina Soto Navarrete & Sam Armitage. Valentina had a phenomenal day! She used her racing experience, pacing herself a new lifetime best (21:05) and 55th place out of 254 racers. 2nd Lady Viking, Sam Armitage who is still on strict orders to just run steady so as to not aggravate her healing knee injury somehow ran her PR (22:28) and finished 120th place placing solidly in the top half of the race. Great day for two mentors and leaders on the team! Capping off the racing for the Vikings was the experienced Varsity Boys. With a smart start, tucked in and drafting behind the front pack, Ayden Buchannan raced relaxed in the first half and his gritty racing the last half launched him to a lifetime best at 15:15 and 14th place. His performance was the 9th fastest ever for a Viking at 3 miles! Grant Young just keeps getting stronger this season and he is gaining momentum with each event. His 15:35 was a 40 second lifetime best over 3 miles and notches him into the top 15 fastest VHS performances of all time. Recovering from illnesses, Emilio Oviedo (16:25) and Noah Flores (17:05) weren’t quite where they had hoped, but the experience of racing in a large competitive field and pushing when not feeling their best will surely pay off later this season. The continued improvement across all levels of the team, shows that the perseverance and work of training is paying off in the continued progression of all the runners. Up next is the Foothill League Race #1 at College of the Canyons where the Vikings will size up the rest of the league and face a tough hilly course at COC. Full Race Results: https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/221400/info https://ca.milesplit.com/videos/670210/valencias-emily-farrell-triumphs-in-blue-div-freshman-race