Led by junior Brenna Merchant’s new school record of 13:01, Laguna finished third at the Palos Verdes Invitational at Palos Verdes High on Saturday, Oct. 5. Merchant’s time easily beat the 13:14 Natasha Strickland (’12) ran two years ago as a senior on the two-mile course.
Merchant finished 13th out of 96 runners to pace a group of six varsity Breakers that did not include juniors Janie Crawford and Solveig Erngren, sophomore Pearl Shoemaker or freshman Bailey Shoemaker, top-10 runners who got the week off. “We have been resting runners occasionally with the goal of keeping everyone healthy and strong for CIF,” stated Coach Steve Lalim.
The rest of the scoring five for the CIF seventh-ranked Breakers were freshman Kirsten Landsiedel (13:21, 16th), junior Natalie Kimball (13:28, 20th), freshman Greer Jacobs (13:34, 22nd), and senior Eliza Romero (13:40, 26th). Senor Audrey Rodriguez (14:13, 32nd) finished sixth for Laguna.
Senior Brielle Budroe finished second overall with a time of 13:21 to lead the JV squad to a second place finish. She was followed by sophomore Allison Konno (14:01, 6th), freshman Sabrina Flagstead (14:20, 9th), sophomores Taylor Alvarez (14:23, 11th) and Lauryn Alvarez (14:27, 14th), and juniors Carlee Ressler (14:32, 15th) and Annie Brown (14:54, 20th).
The third-ranked boys’ team had the week off. Both squads return to action at the Clovis Invitational in Fresno on Saturday, Oct. 12.
