SANTA ROSA — Chloe Rojas, Andreina Guedez and Kelsie Lawson finished three, four, five in the varsity girls” race Wednesday as the Clear Lake Cardinals wrapped up a 6-0 dual-meet season with a 16-42 win over Upper Lake in a Coastal Mountain Conference cross country meet in Santa Rosa.
Santa Rosa Christian and Rincon Valley Christian hosted the final meet of the regular season on their 2.86-mile course.
Clear Lake, Sonoma Academy and St. Hel-ena, the top three girls” teams in the conference, square off next Wednesday at the CMC Championships in Cloverdale.
Girls
Ali Van Zandt won the girls” race in 19 minutes, 51 seconds and Santa Rosa Christian”s Noelle Hosler was second in 21:26. Rojas (22:30), Guedez (22:41), a foreign exchange student from Venezuela, and Lawson (23:10) were the next three runners to cross the finish line.
It was the best race of the season for Guedez, according to Clear Lake coach Peter Stanley.
“This was the best she”s done,” Stanley said. “I can”t say she”s a harder worker than Chloe, but she keeps improving.”
While Rojas and Lawson have taken turns being Clear Lake”s No. 1 finisher in races, Guedez has steadily closed the gap on both runners. She”s finished second on the team a handful of times this season, including Wednesday.
Tamara Rojas of Clear Lake finished ninth (24:59) and Upper Lake”s Brittany Benner was 10th (25:31).
“Tamara is our reliable fourth runner,” Stanley said.
Boys
Even though they weren”t at full strength, the Upper Lake varsity boys beat Clear Lake 16-41.
Chris Cisneros led the Cougars with his sixth-place finish of 18:35 and finishing behind him were teammates Nick Davison (19:29), Cory Rodriguez (19:30) and Alex Rogers (19:38). Clear Lake”s Mike Bradley rounded out the top 10 at 19:50, just eight seconds ahead of 11th-place finisher Jordon Austin of Upper Lake.
Clear Lake runners Matt Gatton (20:18) and Brice Beare (20:19) came in 12th and 13th.
“Upper Lake is just a super strong team,” Stanley said of the Cougars. “We were lucky to get someone in the top five (in head-to-head scoring),” Stanley added of Bradley. “That was a real good run for him. The last few races he”s doing very well.”
Gatton, coming off an injury, also turned in a strong effort. He won a sprint with Beare at the finish.
“Those three guys are fighting for the first spot and the coach loves it,” Stanley said.
Frosh-soph
Clear Lake held off Upper Lake 26-33 in the frosh-soph division even though the first two runners to cross the finish line — Jared Wade (19:51) and Daniel Van Meter (20:04) — were Cougars.
Clear Lake had the next four finishers in Travis Thorn (21:55), Cody Scully (22:08), Connor Disney (22:12) and Jess Woodward (23:05), who stumbled and fell on a rocky path last year on the same course, opening a gash in his forehead that required stitches.
“He smiled at me when he passed me on the course (about 100 yards past the point where he fell last year),” Stanley said. “He”s moving up every week.”
Disney is also moving closer to Thorn and Scully, the team”s top two runners.
“Connor ran his best race in terms of getting closer to Cody,” Stanley said.
