by John Dye

This is the biggest meet of the US high school cross country season on a classic course at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut CA, an eastern suburb of Los Angeles -- 84 races in a day and a half, starting every 8 minutes at the peak, three races on the course at most times.  

As most of the teams are from California, there are myriad matchups of significance to California rankings and previewing the state meet next month. There are also contenders for national team standing in The Harrier's unofficial rankings.  And, finally, there are a bunch of outstanding individual runners who will wage previews of the national Foot Locker championship series that culminates at Disney World in Orlando FL in December.  

The cream of the crop are the Sweepstakes races, which are organized along California's 5-division structure by size of school.  But quality teams can move up to get the competition they need.  

Sweepstakes for Divisions 3-4-5 (smaller schools) are run Friday afternoon, with the top seeded Div 1-2 Sweepstakes on Saturday.

The smaller school card Friday afternoon was to be spiced by the appearance in Division 4 of Big Bear sr Ryan Hall, but Hall's team withdrew at the last minute.  Hall is one of the elite trio of boys distance runners returning from last year's epochal crop (Dathan Ritzenhein and  Alan Webb).   Hall won the Foot Locker Outdoor mile at Raleigh last June and followed that up with a super fast 1500 meters in New England against older runners.

Saturday we see a gang of elite teams and runners in the top seeded Sweepstakes races, with Division 1 and 2 teams enriched by quality teams moving up from smaller divisions.    

Boys Team Sweepstakes: US#2 Poly Long Beach is the clear favorite, gaining with the addition of transfer Ozzie Pina.  Several strong teams will challenge Poly:  US#9 Canyon CA; US#22 Vista CA, and West #10 Don Bosco CA, winner of the Great American small school race.

Boys Individual Sweepstakes:  This race has top individuals whose teams are not strong enough for the team sweeps.  J.J. Duke of Clovis and Gilliat Ghebray of Logan Union City have been running fast times in California this year.  

Girls Team Sweepstakes: Favored is San Lorenzo Valley CA, ranked 6th in The Harrier and due to rise as superstar senior Alejandra Barrientos returns to top form after her summer layoff with a stress fracture.  The SLV Cougars were the top team in California a year ago and #2 in the US.  After a 5th at the Great American in Ale's first race in 4 months, SLV has won big invitationals in California with Ale's teammates improving their own times each week.  Other quality teams in the race include West #8 Peninsula Rolling Hills CA, Murrieta Valley CA, Montgomery Santa Rosa CA (with 2-time defending champion Sara Bei), and Buchanan Clovis CA.  

Girls Individual Sweepstakes: Hoover Glendale CA sr Anita Siraki, national 2-mile champion last June at Raleigh, is the class of this field.  She has been running the fastest cross country times in the nation this year and could threaten the course record of 16:55 (Julia Stamps, 1995).  Also in the race are The Harrier's US#22 Amber Trotter, of Ukiah CA, and several other top California girls including Julie Allen, Laura Jakosky, and Natalie Stein.