Phillip Rocha Remains the Man To Beat
Just in case you were wondering if the race at Stanford was an aberration: no, it wasn't. Rocha clocked 14:58 at Woodward Park Saturday, 16 seconds faster than he ran at this meet last year (and exactly the same as his time at the state meet). Rocha heads into Mt. SAC in two weeks with a ton of confidence for his first of (hopefully) several battles with Austin Tamagno.
Rocha wasn't the only guy on who had a great race, either. Lalo Herrera ran 15:01, coming oh-so-close to his first-ever sub-15 race. Michael Vernau (Davis) continued to justify his status as the most-improved top runner in the state with with a 4th-place finish in 15:14, and Ben Holland (Jesuit) backed up his strong Stanford race with a 15:19 in Fresno.
On the girls' side, Destiny Collins (Great Oak) returned to gold medal status with a 17:36.70 win over Gabby Satterlee (Central Valley Christian). Mikayla Sodersten (Clovis) had a great race, finishing 3rd in 17:50.9 while holding off Holly Lung (Arcadia). The one disappointment from either race was the absence of Fiona O'Keeffe (Davis), the consensus #1 runner in the state so far this fall; she sat out to rest after several weekends of travel, but here presence would have taken this race to another level. We'll just have to wait a few weeks to see the latest edition of her rivalry with Collins renewed!