UPPER LAKE >> It’s a day first-year Upper Lake High School cross country coach Samantha Ponts will never forget. While hosting her first meet, the annual Cougar Classic, Ponts went into labor in the 90-degree-plus heat that was part of Wednesday’s 3.1-mile run through the Upper Lake High School campus.
The combined varsity girls/junior varsity boys’ race was in the process of finishing when Ponts’ water broke. She was on her way to the hospital a few minutes later.
All five Lake County schools participated in Wednesday’s action although several teams are not yet at full strength. They’ll all meet again next Wednesday during the annual Lake County Meet at the Highland Springs course south of Lakeport.
While the Cougar Classic ushers in a new cross country season for the county schools, some familiar faces remain as the runners to beat again in 2016. Sophomore Andre Williams III of Kelseyville breezed to a win in the varsity boys’ race with a time of 18 minutes, 23 seconds, and junior Aleia Milano of Lower Lake ran away from the field in the girls’ race at 22:04. In the junior varsity boys’ race, Lower Lake sophomore Blake Fredrickson, a star wrestler for the Trojans, led the way at 23:05.
Varsity boys
It was only a year ago that Williams burst upon the Lake County cross country scene, winning just about everything in sight. His margin of victory Wednesday was 87 seconds as Clear Lake’s Charlie Adams, a standout swimmer for the Cardinals, finished a strong second in 19:50.
There also was plenty of separation between Williams and third-place finisher Jeffrey Amendola of Kelseyville, who hit the finish line in 21:22. The next four placers were Upper Lake’s only four runners in the race — Colton Goetjen at 21:30, Blake Noble at 22:00, Steven Stump at 22:04 and Chris Johnson at 22:07.
Ethan Wynacht of Clear Lake (22:10), Jack Shrive of Middletown (22:13) and Aiden Isaia of Middletown rounded out the top 10.
Kelseyville had the only complete team (five or more runners) or else the host Cougar likely would have delivered a team win for their delivering first-year coach.
Girls
Milano finished 43 seconds ahead of another veteran runner, Yareli Lozano of Kelseyville (22:47). Savannah Creager (24:28) and Grace Southern (25:07), both of Middletown, finished third and fourth, respectively, and Jenny Landeta of Lower Lake came in fifth at 25:16.
The next five finishers were Baiely Couey (25:21) and Laurel Weller (27:56), both of Kelseyville; Lily Wetmore (28:18) of Lower Lake; Bri Henry (29:15) of Kelseyville; and Rainey Vanoven (29:16) of Clear Lake.
JV boys
Fredrickson won the JV boys’ race by 32 seconds over Skylar Moore (23:37) of Clear Lake. Jared Meek of Lower Lake finished third in 24:10.
