Stanford-bound Chiara Dailey wins fourth San Diego Section cross country title

Looking at La Jolla’s Chiara Dailey, it didn’t take much imagination to consider what the other runners at Saturday’s CIF San Diego Section Cross Country Championships looked like.

Dailey had mud all over her legs and all the way up into her hair.

A driving rainstorm turned a usually challenging 2.96-mile course into a muddy, slippery quagmire. Before the first race even started, officials had moved to the backup “rain’ course that shortened the race to 2.9 miles by eliminating the infamous Upas Street hill.

Dreams of course records were quickly dashed, replaced in most cases by a hope to simply survive the brutal conditions.

The exception was Dailey, who instead took aim at one of the rarest of accomplishments — winning four consecutive section titles.

Dailey went right to the front and really was never threatened as she rolled to a time of 17 minutes, 10.8 seconds to capture the Division 4 title by more than 43 seconds over Sage Creek freshman Isabel Gladden. She became the fifth San Diego Section runner – all girls – to win four straight titles.

“Winning four straight is pretty cool,” said Dailey, who will attempt to win her third straight state crown in two weeks in Fresno. “It’s special. I wasn’t going for time because of the conditions, and I’ll admit I slipped a few times but never fell.

“It’s hard to believe it’s been four years and that next year I’ll be running at Stanford. I was excited before the race and, truthfully, I wanted it to rain. It’s refreshing and I’d never run in the rain before.

“I think I could have broken the course record in ideal conditions, but now I’ll train hard for a week and then taper for state.”

While Dailey captured her fourth title, Eastlake’s Jaelyn Williams, who will be running with Dailey at Stanford a year from now, showed she’s in better shape than ever, winning the Division 1 title in 16:42.4. That was the fastest girls time of the day and nearly two minutes faster than the second-place finisher.

Williams, who won her third consecutive title, is looking for the elusive state crown in the toughest of all divisions. She finished fourth as a freshman and sophomore.

“It had almost stopped raining when the race started, but the course was the muddiest,” said Williams. “For me, this was exciting because I’m seeing my potential realized. I wasn’t going all out, but now I’m going to state where I’ll go all out.”

In Division 5, Christian’s Eliana Patterson won the much-ballyhooed showdown against two-time section champion Ayanna Hickey of Bishop’s and 2023 titlist Ari Llorens of Francis Parker.

“I was pretty nervous – scared,” said the Patriots junior. “I finally realized there was nothing I could do about the conditions and to just trust God. It was puddles and mud, so I knew I had to race smart.”

On the boys’ side, Mt. Carmel’s Jaxon Northcutt led the Dons to an impressive title in Division 3 while Nathan Wilber did likewise for Cathedral Catholic in Division 2.

Northcutt raced to a time of 15:01.7 as the Sundevils edged Scripps Ranch 42-45 (low score wins) in the team chase.

“I didn’t run for almost a month before the league meet with tendinitis, but this is what cross country is supposed to be like,” Northcutt said. “About 150 yards into the race, I fell hard, but I bounced right back up. I was lucky.”

Wilber led the way as Cathedral Catholic low-scored La Costa Canyon 41-77. The top five scoring runners for the Dons were only 40 seconds apart.

“(The weather) was bad, but I kind of liked it,” said Wilber. “The whole idea was to just stay upright. I knew there would be no school or section records in this weather. The most important thing was qualifying for state, and we did that.”

Sage Creek made a big impact after moving down to Division 4 this year as Josiah Bowman won at 14:52.6 after winning Division 3 a year ago.

San Marcos’ Dean Odom proved the best Division 1 runner as he won in 15:08.7 in a race where Poway dominated the team scoring with 49 points to San Marcos’ 106.