Kaiya Brooks leads Crystal Springs to CCS cross-country crown

Brooks ran well ahead of the rest of the top tier for a winning time of 17 minutes, 44.7 seconds. Oceana sophomore Lara Scanziani-Grijalvo took second place in 18:38.8. The time was well off the pace from Brooks’s West Bay Athletic League championship run of 17:26.6 the week prior.

“I felt pretty good,” Brooks said. “It was a little bit windier today, but the conditions overall were pretty good. I felt strong. I never fully know; it’s a tricky course with the hills and everything. Yeah, I’m pretty happy with the effort I put in.”

Crystal enjoyed a Division V sweep, with the boys’ team — led by a second-place finish by sophomore Benjamin Bouie — also earning the team championship.

Menlo senior Justin Pretre took the Division V boys’ individual title in 14:48.2. He was one of just two runners in the divisions 1-5 races combined to run a sub-15-minute time. The other was Palo Alto junior Grant Morgenfeld, who won the Division II race in 14:54.1.

Brooks recorded the fourth best overall time for all girl runners. Los Altos senior Lauren Soobrian had the top girls’ time, winning the Division II title in 17:29. Brooks’s Division V win marks her second CCS individual title, and her first since her freshman season of 2019. It was a fitting sendoff for her last varsity race on her home course.

“That hit me earlier today,” Brooks said. “It made me appreciate the course as I was running it. I love this course.”

Both the Crystal Springs boys’ and girls’ teams now advance to the state championship meet, held this Saturday at Woodward Park in Fresno. The top three teams in each division earn bids to the state finals.

For Brooks, running at Crystal Springs for the last time was a breezy run — both figuratively and literally. Persistent wind may have affected her time, but upon finishing, the senior had hardly broken a sweat.

“Definitely, for me, I feel like I run better when I have competition,” Brooks said. “I’ve been trying to work on getting better at pushing myself when I’m alone.”

Rounding out the Crystal girls’ top five: freshman Kira Dye (sixth place, 19:31.4); sophomore Maya Wohl (10th, 20:09.80; freshman Lauryn Fleshman (21st, 21:12.4); and freshman Heidy Avina (22nd, 21:13.2).

Rounding out the Crystal boys’ top five: senior Furious Clay (fourth, 15:31); sophomore Tarik Baker (fifth, 15:41.3); sophomore Oliver Boesch (10th, 16:28.1); junior Matthew Morris (12th, 16:38.5).

M-A girls dominate Division I

Menlo-Atherton claimed the CCS Division I girls’ championship, with junior Tatum Olesen taking the individual title in 18:33.5. Olesen led a trio of Bears who finished as the top three placers, with senior Katherine Lorenz taking second in 18:44.4, and senior Chloe Pilette taking third in 18:49.3. M-A’s top five finishers all placed in the top 10, with junior Annie Pflaum taking fifth in 18:53.8, and junior Cleo Rehkopf taking eighth in 19:29.8.

In the Division I boys’ race, M-A took third place, paced by junior Aidan Doherty, who placed fourth individually in 16:04.1. Mountain View senior Evan Markelz won the individual title in 15:09.3.

HMB girls head to state meet

The Half Moon Bay girls’ team took third place in the CCS Division IV finals, earning a bid to Saturday state meet in Fresno. Deia Kerseg, a junior, was the Cougars’ top placer, taking seventh in 19:50.5. But it was the 52nd-place finish of junior Akiko Tananka in 22:12.8 that clinched the state bid, as she raced past a pack of seven runners in the final 200 meters to allow HMB to climb the team leaderboard.

“She was the difference,” Half Moon Bay head coach Paul Farnsworth said.

Farnsworth said Tananka has been HMB’s fourth- or fifth-seeded runner all season and isn’t always a strong finisher.

“Sometimes yes and sometimes no, but today she was,” Farnsworth said. “But when I told her, she was like: ‘Yay!’ And she is just such a sweet kid. It’s not like — some kids are like these wildcats, and Akiko is more like a kitten. But this year she’s been tearing it up and really digging deep. … I’m so proud of her.”

In the Division III girls’ race, Hillsdale's Naia Hsieh, a sophomore, had a fourth-place finish of 18:57.3 to qualify for the state meet as an individual. Burlingame freshman Stella Newman took second place individually in 18:53.1 to also qualify for state. Newman recorded the third-best girls’ time of any freshman from all divisions.

Editor's note: this article has been updated. Hillsdale's Nana Hsieh qualified for the state meet as an individual.