Cross Country Girls – League Champs !
Teams Prep for CIF This Saturday
Laguna girls captured their seventh all-time league team title last Wednesday as the Breakers edged Godinez for conference honors at the annual league meet at Centennial Park adjacent to Godinez High School in Santa Ana. Eliza Romero was Laguna’s top runner finishing second with a time of 18:46.17 for the three-mile course. Also scoring for the Breakers were Brenna Merchant (6), Carlee Ressler (7) , Natalie Kimball (8) and Janie Crawford (12).
Breakers advance to the Division IV Southern Section Preliminaries this Saturday at Mt SAC with the finals the following Saturday at the same site. Cross country along with track are the only sports with playoff groupings based solely on enrollment. D-IV is limited to co-ed schools with four-year enrollments between 501 and 1250 students or singles sex schools between 251 and 625 students.
Breaker girls are ranked seventh in the division and must finish among the top seven teams to qualify for the state meet in Fresno on Nov. 24. Breakers have never won a CIF section title finishing second in 1980, 1992, and 2004.
The boys squad missing lead runner Jack Crawford finished a disappointing fourth this year at the league meet but the squad still received an at-large bid to the CIF prelims this Saturday and are ranked eighth in the division. Godinez, a D-II size school, was the 2012 Orange Coast League champion. Scoring for the Breakers this year were Casiano Koprowski (7), Grant Barton (8), Veda Rebollar (17), John Kimball (18) and Stone Riff (23). 38 runners competed in the event. The Boys team finished 14th last year at CIF and have placed in the top 10 11 of the past 13 seasons.
Boys Water Polo (19-9)
Laguna still managed to earn a third seed in the D-II playoffs that opened this week despite their ragged finish to the regular season the past two weeks. Should the seeding prevail, Breakers will have a rematch with Murrieta Valley this Saturday with the winner probably facing Santa Barbara on Wednesday at the Woollett Center at Irvine HS. Breakers defeated Murrieta 11-6 on Oct. 15 and lost at Santa Barbara 10-7 back on Sept. 21.
Caleb Scott fired six goals to lead Laguna to a 13-8 victory over Aliso Niguel last Friday at the local pool in the conclusion to the regular season. Jack Dodson and Duncan Lynde added two each while Riley Thomas provided four assists.
All CIF playoff brackets and scores can be found at www.cifss.org.
