SANTA ROSA — Upper Lake”s Gage DeHeer edged out Piner High School”s Ian Carpenter by a second to win the open boys” race on Saturday during the Viking Invitational cross country run at Spring Lake in Santa Rosa.
DeHeer led the Upper Lake boys, fresh off their victory at the Lake County Meet, to a team win as well as the Cougars finished with eight points to runner-up Maria Carrillo”s 21 (top three finishers for each team determines team total). DeHeer finished the 2-mile course in 11 minutes, 39 seconds to Carpenter”s 11:40.
“Gage went to the front at about one and a quarter miles and he just took off,” Upper Lake coach John Woods said. “He”s an extremely hard worker and deserving of this.”
Following DeHeer and Carpenter across the finish line were the Upper Lake trio of Cory Rodriguez (11:46), Alex Rogers (11:49) and Zach Sneathen (11:53), who is only a freshman.
Also for Upper Lake, Jared Wade came in 10th (12:13) and Greg Gagnon was 11th (12:13).
“They all had a really good run,” Woods said. “I told them they had to go out harder than they normally do because the course was only 2 miles. They were out front from the get-go.”
Along with his lead pack of runners, Woods said the entire boys” squad — right down to freshmen Matt Willard, Justin Lewis and Emmitt Quadrio — finished strong.
During a team practice on Monday, Woods said his boys requested more hill work and he was happy to oblige.
“They want to get better,” he said.
Upper Lake”s varsity girls placed eighth overall in the open girls” division and were led by sophomore Bianca Cruz, who was eighth overall in 14:36. Brittany Benner was 25th in 15:55 and Yamileth Plata was 44th in 16:25.
“Cruz passed a lot of people on the second mile,” Woods said. “If the race would have been 3 miles, I think she would have passed others.”
While the Upper Lake girls don”t have the experience of the veteran boys” squad, Woods said he is happy with the team”s continued improvement.
“They all did really good,” Woods said.
The Viking Invitational offers a variety of divisions, including senior boys, junior boys, frosh/soph boys, open boys and middle school boys, senior/junior girls, frosh/soph girls, open girls and middle school girls.
The best overall boys” time went to Paul Holden of Ukiah, the senior boys” winner at 10:03. The best overall girls” time went to seventh-grader Rylee Brown of Rincon Valley Middle School, the middle school girls” winner at 11:56.
Upper Lake scores against Calistoga in a Coastal Mountain Conference meet on Wednesday afternoon in Cloverdale.
