Bonsall girls win cross-country league cluster

The first Frontier Conference cross-country cluster meet of the 2019 season took place Sept. 18, and Bonsall High School did not have the necessary five girls to obtain a team score. The second cluster meet was held Oct. 10 on the NTC Park at Liberty Station course, and the Bonsall girls took first place not only among Summit League teams but among all Frontier Conference teams.

Team cross-country scores are derived by adding the positions of a school’s first five finishers; the sixth and seventh runners are not scored but can add points to other school’s totals. Bonsall had 50 points when all 11 Frontier Conference teams with at least five runners are factored into the team scoring. Liberty Charter High School was second with 75 points and Mountain Empire High School was third with 87 points.

“To come out the first time this season in a cluster meet with a scoring team and win not only against the Summit League teams but also all Frontier Conference teams by a 25-point margin shows the top five girls’ determination to prove that Bonsall is the team to beat,” Bonsall coach Tamara Miller said.

The Frontier Conference has 20 schools and is divided into the Summit, Patriot and Pioneer leagues. The Summit League includes Liberty Christian, Mountain Empire, Julian, Victory Christian and High Tech High North County high schools as well as Bonsall.

The Legionnaires now have 10 girls on the team, although only nine of them ran Oct. 10. Only four Bonsall girls ran in the Sept. 18 league cluster meet and Miller, who is also the Sullivan Middle School cross-country coach, desired to bring some of her Sullivan runners to the Bonsall program.

“When seeing the four girls practice after school, my instinct as Sullivan’s cross-country coach was to seek out and convince some of my old runners that are attending Bonsall High School to join the team,” Miller said.

Milana Collier ran for Miller on the 2016 and 2017 Sullivan teams and was on Bonsall’s team as a freshman in 2018. She did not start this year with the Legionnaires.

“Milana Collier was a given for me due to her success on my cross-country team at Sullivan. She is a top competitor and competed on Bonsall High’s team her freshman year. I knew if she returned and put swimming to the side for a bit Bonsall’s top five girls would have a real shot at a league championship,” Miller said.

The Frontier Conference formula for the league championship and the other final standings positions utilizes a points system. For each of the four league cluster meets the first-place team receives four points, the second-place school is given three points, third place is worth two points and fourth place earns the team one point. The league championship meet Nov. 14 at NTC Park, whose name reflects the site’s former use as the Naval Training Center in San Diego, will provide eight points for first place, six points for second, four points for third and two points for fourth.

Miller also recruited former Sullivan runners Samantha Amador and Aidan Miller to the Bonsall team. Amador’s sister, Elizabeth and Aidan Miller’s friend Jordan Whaley also joined the team as did Dani Cruz.

“It is the old saying: the more the merrier. It will inspire more to join,” Tamara Miller said.

Collier was the first Bonsall girl across the finish line Oct. 10 and the sixth overall finisher among the 91 Frontier Conference girls. Her time on the 3-mile course was 22 minutes 18 seconds. A time of 22:21.5 gave Bonsall freshman Mikayla Gioia seventh place; senior Isabella Ford completed the course in 23:21.6 for 14th place; senior Abigayle Ford had the 16th-place time of 23.22.9 and senior Faith Gioia took 17th place with a time of 23:46.3.

Those finishes not only gave Bonsall the winning score but also gave the Legionnaires a 68-second split between the first and fifth finishers.

“As soon as I took on coaching Bonsall High, the first thing I did was hypothetically place Milana into where I knew her three-mile time would fall, which was right near Mikayla Gioia’s as they are very similar in their performances. I then looked at the time of the Ford twins who always finish with one another and our fifth runner, Faith Gioia. I knew if I could work on the twins pushing one another to a faster pace where they could visually see Mikayla and Milana in a race as well as get Faith Gioia to stick with the twins that we could close the gap on one through five and have a real shot at winning the league,” Miller said. “I started to push them in workouts to stick with one another and execute that plan in the meet. They listened well, pushed themselves and raced exactly as we planned, leading to the tight gap between one through five and securing first place by 25 points.”

Samantha Amador was Bonsall’s sixth runner and had the 36th-place time of 26:17.8.

Last year Julian, Mountain Empire and Victory Christian were in the Southern Conference. This year they were the only three schools in the Southern Conference with cross-country programs, so they were placed in the Frontier Conference for cross-country only. Mountain Empire won the Citrus League championship in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 and Julian was the 2014 Citrus League champion. Mountain Empire also won the CIF Division V girls championship in 2017 and Julian was the Division V girls champion in 2001, 2002, 2006 and 2007.

“It is an honor to compete against schools that have a proven history of taking home CIF division championships,” Miller said. “It shows that Bonsall is in a competitive league and CIF division and doing extremely well by taking home the victory at the league cluster meet. Cross-country is about who you have running on your team in any given year and are those top five girls going to be clustered together with low enough times to take home a win.”

The boys’ varsity race included six scored teams and 86 harriers competed. Bonsall placed fourth among the six Frontier Conference teams and third among the five Summit League schools.

“I am proud of the boys for their performance and placing. They are such a great group of boys who have all listened, adapted and trusted the training, form changes and strategy I gave them,” Miller said. “Finishing with a higher rank would be awesome, of course, but all a coach really ever wants from a team is the athletes to continue to PR (set personal records), and that they are doing.”

High Tech High Chula Vista had both the premier team score and the first two runners across the finish line. They were followed by senior Austin Alanis, whose third-place time was 16:35.0.

“Austin Alanis is an outstanding runner, one who knows his pace extremely well and will execute it perfectly every race,” Miller said. “He is strong, committed and a natural runner who has a competitive fire. His goal is to place first or second in the league at championship and I am confident he will achieve just that.”

A second Bonsall runner finished among the top 10; sophomore Ethan McFarland was 10th at 17:39.7.

“My goal for Ethan has been to narrow the gap to his teammate Austin and to use him to pull him into the Top 10 for the league,” Miller said. “Ethan McFarland is one of the most dedicated, determined, hardest working, most positive runners I have ever coached, and it’s showing in his races. He and I are so happy to be back together as coach and runner.”

Bonsall had six runners in the varsity race. A time of 20:21.6 gave junior Henrik Nylund 38th place; sophomore Lucas Lopez finished 40th and completed the course in 20:37.8; sophomore Adam Tamimi had a time of 22:25.3 for 60th place and junior Charlie Hoffman had the 70th-place time of 23:56.6.

“My goal for the boys is to continue to push each runner with a similar teammate in practice so that in the races they can push one another,” Miller said. “My three and four runners, Henrik Nylund and Lucas Lopez, work well with one another and switch off in races like a cat and mouse game which will only support their desire to close the gap to my one and two runners.”

Miller will also be utilizing a similar strategy for her fifth through seventh runners.

“They will continue to work with one another in a pack to push closer to my three and four Henrik and Lucas,” Miller said. “All three to seven runners are responding to changes I am making in their running form and their race strategy. I expect them to move up closer to Austin and Ethan each race and to finish out the season with a four-minute gap.”