FRESNO >> After fighting her way up to near the front of the pack, which was no small thing in a field of 200 runners, Kelseyville High School’s Yareli Lozano went on to place 46th on Saturday in Division V during the CIF State Cross Country Championships at Fresno’s Woodward Park.
Lozano completed the 3.2-mile course in 20 minutes, 20.9 seconds, securing a spot in the top quarter of the field in her first and only appearance at the CIF State Championships. The senior qualified for the state meet after placing 14th a week earlier at the North Coast Section Championships in Hayward. Prior to that she secured a third-place finish at the Coastal Mountain Conference Championships in Point Arena, that following an undefeated regular season for the Knights.
“Yareli had a great run,” Kelseyville coach Jeff Weller said. “She had to work really hard for that 46th-place finish.”
A four-year veteran at Kelseyville, Lozano was the first Lake County female runner to reach the state meet since Middletown’s Julia Malvino in 2005. Malvino placed 132nd out of 186 runners in Division IV. Also in 2005, Lower Lake’s Mike Perez finished fourth in the Division IV boys race to earn a medal.
One of Lozano’s fellow competitors at both the CMC and NCS championships, Sonoma Academy senior Rylee Bowen, won the Division V race on Saturday with a time of 18:17.9. It was her third Division V state title in four years. Kate Bowen, Rylee’s younger sister, finished 10th at 18:49.2.
Another CMC runner, Iris Berto of Technology, came in 19th at 19:22.
Lozano made a huge jump from an injury plagued junior season, training hard in the offseason to prepare for her senior year that opened with a first-place finish at the Lake County Meet in mid-September. She went undefeated during the CMC dual meet season.
Upon graduating from Kelseyville next spring, Lozano wants to pursue her running career in college, possibly at UC Davis or Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo.
In the Division V boys race on Saturday, former Kelseyville standout Andre Williams, now competing for Sonoma Academy, secured a fourth-place medal with a time of 15:52.2. Williams, a junior, steadily moved up after the start. He was 31st at the first split and ninth at the second split. Williams placed 15th as a sophomore for Kelseyville last year in Division V.
