Rancho Bernardo girls golfers head to state, Poway boys cross country wins division

Before Rancho Bernardo’s girls headed north for the Southern California Golf Regionals, coach Robert Park made a half-serious statement.

“If everyone just shoots par, I’ll be happy,” Park said of the Broncos girls who were looking for their first trip to the state championships, which will be held Wednesday at Pebble Beach’s famous Poppy Hills Golf Course. To see the results, visit pomeradonews.com

The Broncos girls actually did even better than the optimistic prediction as their top five girls combined to go 6-under par 364, finishing second in the team race by three points behind Orange County’s Santa Margarita and one spot and two strokes ahead of Torrey Pines.

All three qualified for the state championships where Torrey Pines was the defending champion.

Leading the way was senior Kayla Geng who, along with freshman Lillian Phee, was three-under par. Amanda Peng was a stroke back of the two while Sophia Roxas and Madelyn Reyes were each one over.

Geng, who had been on three RB teams that had qualified for the SoCal Regionals but failed to advance, was particularly happy.

“Amazing, oh my gosh. We’re so hyped right now,” Geng said in a phone interview. “We’re literally on Cloud 9. We came together and gave each other the biggest hugs. It means so much to us.”

Park, who said the team was “calm, cool and collected,” had predicted the Broncos would go into the SoCal Regionals as the underdog, with nothing to lose, and felt that might give the team an edge, playing more for the fun of it than applying pressure to themselves.

It worked out that way. It was an added bonus for Rancho Bernardo to edge Torrey Pines, which had beaten them in the section championships. Once again, Torrey Pines had the pressure as the defending state champs while for the Broncos it was a first-time experience.

CROSS COUNTRY

When the rain started falling just minutes before the start of the San Diego Section cross country championships, runners and coaches had to adjust their goals.

Favored teams like Poway’s boys leaned on their experienced coach, Ronnie Harris, and cruised to the Division 1 championship, low-scoring San Marcos 49-106.

“We just told the kids before the race not to lay down on the tarp under a cover but to keep moving and once the race started, they’d be fine,” said Harris,  who told the Titans about running in the snow at Marquette University his senior year in the Naval Academy.

 “Actually, it wasn’t that cold (Saturday) but after losing the section championship the year before by three points, we were determined to win. Win big if we could.”

Although Cooper Castleberry led through the first two miles, he had suffered a thigh injury a few days before the championships and although it wasn’t bad enough to not run, when it came time for a final sprint he just wanted to make sure the Titans were en route to winning.

“That’s the ultimate teammate,” said Harris, whose girls also qualified for the state championships Nov. 28 at Woodward Park in Fresno.

Castleberry (15:21.0) placed fifth overall while sophomore teammate Blake Littrell finished in second place at 15:09.6, one second behind San Marcos’ Dean Odom. The other five scorers were Kevin Buswell in 11th, Anthony Menolascino in 13th and Dylan Nash in 18th.

“Having all five runners in the top 20 is huge,” said Harris, noting that the trio behind Castleberry was just 40 seconds back. 

Now the Titans have a week to train and then taper prior to the state meet.

Elsewhere, the Del Norte boys and girls also will be running in Fresno after the girls were a close second (58-75) behind Canyon Crest Academy and the boys were third (120 points), 14 points behind San Marcos.

Del Norte’s girls got a boost when Eliza Hong, who had missed all but the league championship recovering from a foot stress fracture suffered in track, returned and placed ninth overall (19:07.3) behind fifth-place teammate Olivia Bartolay (18:43.3) and eighth place Lilah Enyedi (19:01.0).