Great time to be a runner in San Mateo County

Sports Editor

Crystal’s Benjamin Bouie helped lead the Gryphons to both the 2022 Division V CCS and state cross country championships. He is returning for his junior season.

In 2022, San Mateo County cross country teams put together a strong seasons. Runners from the Peninsula captured two individual Central Coast Section titles, three teams championships, eight top-3 team finishes, and 28 top-10 individual racers.

Is this a golden age of cross country in the county?

“Absolutely,” said Menlo-Atherton head coach Eric Wilmurt. “All across the board, cross country is definitely peaking.”

Menlo’s Justin Pretre and Crystal’s Kaiya Brooks, who both won CCS individual titles last season, have graduated. While county teams have lost some of the top talent, the top teams always seem to simply reload. The M-A girls and Menlo and Crystal boys’ and girls’ squads had a plethora of young talent last season, so it only stands to reason those runners will help their teams stay near the top.

Two of those teams that expect to be near the top again are the Crystal and Menlo teams. Until last year, however, that rivalry was exclusively in the West Bay Athletic League. But with the Knights being reclassified into Division V at the CCS championships for 2022, that rivalry took on a bigger importance. The Gryphons held off the Knights to win both the boys’ and girls’ championships at CCS, on their way to capturing the school’s first-ever state championships.

While it’s hard to set a goal as repeating state champions, Crystal head coach Albert Caruana expects both his Gryphons and Menlo to be battling it out for league and section supremacy again this season.

“Menlo is going to be really competitive. … They lost a couple of seniors, but they have a lot of kids coming back,” Caruana said. “We graduated [some key runners], but a lot of the kids are back. It’s going to be super competitive.”

Menlo will be led by junior Landon Pretre, Justin’s younger brother and a standout in his own right, who finished third at CCS in 2022. Will Hauser, Jared Seal, James Yue and Alex Boesch all return after top-20 last year.

Crystal counters with the 2022 runner-up, junior Benjamin Bouie. Joining him are Tarik Baker, Oliver Boesch, Matthew Morris and Dean Wu, who all finished in the top-15 at last year’s section meet.

Before those teams get to CCS, however, they’ll have to navigate a WBAL season, which is proving to be one of the strongest leagues in CCS. In last year’s Division V girls’ team competition, Crystal finished first, Castilleja second, Menlo third and King’s Academy fifth. On the boys’ side, Crystal, Menlo and King’s went 1, 2, 5 in the final team standings.

“Our league meets, in some ways, were more competitive than CCS,” Caruana said. “When you’re in a competitive league, it makes you better.”

The top teams in the WBAL are being pushed, however, by the Nueva School program, which competes in the Private School Athletic League. The Mavericks finished third in the boys’ team standings at CCS and the Nueva girls were fourth.

On the public school side, the M-A girls’ and boys’ team are expecting to compete for PAL and CCS championships. The Lady Bears, led by Daily Journal Girls’ Track Athlete of the Year Tatum Olesen, won the CCS Division I title, while the boys’ finished third as a team.

The M-A girls graduated Katie Lorenz and Chloe Pillette, who finished 2-3 behind Olesen. But the Bears still return Annie Pflaum and Cleo Rehkopf, who finished fifth and eighth, respectively.

Look for the Carlmont and Half Moon Bay girls’ teams to challenge M-A for PAL supremacy, with Hillsdale being a dark horse. The Scots, which have as strong a cross country tradition as any team in county, finished fifth as a team last year in Division I. Katherine Peacock and Emma Golden finished 11-12 in the DI race and will be entering their junior seasons. Half Moon Bay, led by rising senior Deia Kerseg, finished third in the CCS DIV race last season. The Cougars return five of their top seven runners this season.

The Hillsdale girls finished third in the DIII race, just missing out on a trip to the state meet. Nana Hsieh and Lauryn Matsumoto, were only sophomores last season, but posted finishes of fourth and 14th, respectively. Jordan Robinson, who finished 16th last season, enters her senior year.

But the Peninsula Athletic League doesn’t just boast strong teams, it also has some outstanding individual runners. Oceana’s Lara Scanziani-Grij had an outstanding 2022 season as a sophomore, finished second at CCS in the Division V race and 18th at the state meet. Burlingame’s Stella Newman came out of nowhere as a freshman to finish second in the Division III CCS race last season.

The M-A boys’ squad had the best finish of any Peninsula Athletic League team in 2022 and Wilmurt is hoping that will motivate his team to take the next step. Aidan Doherty, who will be entering his senior season, led the Bears to a third-place finish at CCS last season, by finishing fourth in the Division I race. Dylan Lanier and Rowan Pecson, are also going into their senior seasons after finishing 13th and 14th last year, with Cason Mitchell, who ran 15th as a freshman, back for his second season.

The Carlmont boys’ team is always in the mix for a PAL title, while Mills and Half Moon Bay will look to improve on top-10 CCS team finishes in 2022.

“I came from [Dublin High School in the North Coast Section] and I remember CCS being a weaker section,” Wilmurt said. “When I got to M-A, I thought things would be easy. But [the PAL and CCS have] progressively gotten more competitive and it’s never been easy.”

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