13 Warriors medal in cross country season opener

Joe Naiman

Village News Reporter

Fallbrook High School's cross country teams opened their season Sept. 11 at the 37th annual Laguna Hills Cross Country Invitational meet. The top 40 finishers in each race received medals, and that included 13 Fallbrook runners.

A majority of Fallbrook runners who participated received a medal. The program currently has 27 students, although not all of them competed Sept. 11.

The roster consists of 17 girls and 10 boys. "I'm a little down on boys," said head coach Marco Arias.

Fallbrook's boys include freshmen Daniel Wilson and Connor MacMillan. Wilson had a time of 22:02.0 on the 3-mile course to give him 48th place among the 83 finishers in the race. MacMillan finished 55th with a time of 22:21.5.

"That's a pretty good starting point for them," Arias said. "I was pretty happy with the way they raced."

Fallbrook had six entrants in the freshman girls race which had a total of 93 runners. Two of the Warriors took home medals. Lucia Mochel had the fifth-place finish and a time of 21:31.1.

"That was a very good freshman mark," Arias said of Mochel's time.

Mochel's time was also the fastest of any Fallbrook girl at the meet. The other Fallbrook freshman girl who medaled, Cynthia Mills, had the 19th-place time of 23:15.9.

"The race of the day was probably the freshman girls," Arias said.

At least five runners are needed for a team score, which is derived by adding the positions of a school's first five finishers. Fallbrook placed seventh among Division 1 freshman girls teams.

Fallbrook's sophomore girls placed fifth as a team with four of the five Fallbrook runners medaling. "A very good race was put in by the sophomore girls," Arias said.

Avery Lynas took ninth place and had a time of 21:58.3. Sahara Khoury was the 13th finisher and completed the course in 22:29.5. Casandra Rivera had the 23rd-place time of 23:28.8. Maya Khoury was the 26th runner to complete the race and had a 23:34.9 performance. The race had 71 runners.

Fallbrook sophomores Rori Gartner and Abby Petersen also play club soccer and did not run Sept. 11. "Had we had Rori or Abby place we probably would have gotten second or third in that race," Arias said.

Both of Fallbrook's sophomore boys medaled in their race with both finishing among the first half of the medalists. Fisher Phillips finished 10th among 96 harriers with a 17:52.8 performance and Devin Huntington had the 20th-place time of 18:32.3.

The Division 1 junior boys race had 87 finishers. The only Fallbrook competitor, Abraham Hughes, placed 80th at 22:44.0. The Warriors had no runners in the junior girls race.

Fallbrook's only senior girl, Maddy Gaul, finished 15th with a time of 23:39.5.

"She's also having a tremendous season," Arias said. "Probably for me it was one of the highlights of the meet."

The 2018 Laguna Hills Cross Country Invitational was Gaul's first cross country race. She had a time of 27:06 to place 65th in that year's freshman race.

Two of the 65 runners in the Division 1 senior boys race wore Fallbrook uniforms and both medaled. Dawson Fluck was 18th after completing the course in 17:44.2 and Lucas Chase became the 39th finisher 19:06.9 after the race began.

Fluck lost a shoe during the second mile, so he had to stop to put the shoe back on his foot. "That cost him some spots and some time," Arias said. "He still medaled."

Arias believes that Gartner and Peterson along with the seven girls who medaled will be the core of the Warriors' girls team this year. "We have a strong nine," he said.

The boys runners also include senior Ivan Ixta, who was ill Sept. 11 and did not compete.

"Just excited to see how we develop," Arias said.

Arias graduated from Fallbrook High School in 1987. His assistant coaches this year are 1993 Fallbrook High School graduate Tamara Miller, 2011 Fallbrook High School graduate Joel Rivera, and 2020 Fallbrook High School graduate Josh Hernandez.

"We have a completely Fallbrook High School graduate coaching staff," Arias said.