As senior Charlotte Castelli bounded onto the colored surface of the Morro Bay track, she had 300 meters left to go. Dominating for the entirety of the 2.8-mile race, the senior’s strides were long and powerful as she approached the final stretch of the race. With the next racer about ten seconds behind her, Castelli finished in first place with a time of 19:11 minutes and an average mile time of 6:23.
Castelli and the girls and boys cross country team traveled to Morro Bay High School on Saturday, Sept. 11 for the Invitational Meet. With runners hailing from schools like Clovis West, Atascadero, Bakersfield, Righetti, Redwood, etc., over 157 girls and 96 boys competed in their respective varsity races. Despite these odds, bearcats were able to persevere through dirt, track, and even sand, as the race bled onto the beach, to grasp excellence in their second meet of the year.
What Castelli wasn’t able to see until the finish was the battle going on between the second and third runners behind her. Junior Sydney Moore and a competitor from Templeton were neck in neck as they rounded the corner and approached the 100-meter mark. After 2.8 miles, both athletes sprinted with everything they had left and finished four seconds apart from each other. Moore took home third place for the Bearcats with a time of 19:40.
Bearcats ran in the Varsity girls, Varsity boys, JV girls, JV boys, freshman girls, and freshman boys races. Senior Diego Ortega was the first Bearcat finisher to cross the finish line for the varsity boys and placed 21st in the meet with his time of 16:31. For Freshman boys, Arnuflo Saavdera ran a 13:17 and placed first in the 2-mile race out of 77 athletes.
Overall, the Varsity girls team placed fourth with a score of 148 and the Varsity boys team finished eighth with a score of 252. The Bearcats will be traveling to Clovis for their next invitational on Sept. 24.
[button color=”red” size=”normal” alignment=”none” rel=”follow” openin=”newwindow” url=”https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/187490/results”]Click here to see the results/times of the meet![/button]
