11.24.07
Schwartz captures Division I boys title
Schwartz captures Division I boys title
BY JEFF EVANS, Californian staff writer
e-mail: jevans@bakersfield.com | Saturday, Nov 24 2007 6:45 PM
Last Updated: Saturday, Nov 24 2007 6:50 PM
FRESNO — Foothill High School cross country coaches Arron Rietz and Paul Contreras saw Chris Schwartz blow away the competition three years ago at a frosh-soph race.
Photos:
Photo by Casey Christie / The Californian
Foothill High’s Chris Schwartz, right, outsprints, Trabucco Hills’ Riley Sullivan, near the finish line Saturday in Fresno during the state championship cross country championships. Schwartz took first and Sullivan came in second.
“We said right then that Chris could be a state champion by his senior year,” Rietz said. “He made it a year early.”
race video HERE
interview HERE
Schwartz, a Foothill junior, passed Trabuco Hills’ Riley Sullivan with about 600 yards to go in the 3.1-mile race and outkicked Sullivan to the finish line to capture the state championship for Division I boys.
complete kern results HERE
In the Division IV boys team race, McFarland placed third in an unsuccessful bid to become the first team in state history with 10 state team titles.
Schwartz becomes only the fourth Kern County runner to win a state individual cross country title and the first for Division I. His time of 15 minutes, 13 seconds was a personal record for the course.Sullivan, the pre-race favorite, timed 15:14.
“I thought about kicking earlier and going into the lead,” Schwartz said as he was mobbed by family and supporters. “But if I would’ve done that, I would’ve been third. Staying with the pack: I figured I’d have a little left in the tank so I could kick at the end.”
And that’s what happened. Schwartz, Riley and third-place finisher Brett Walters from Sultana were the lead pack. Sultana passed Schwartz at the bottom of the hill with 1 mile remaining. Riley and Schwartz pulled ahead of Walters and got enough separation to make it a two-man race.
“He went right by me with about 600 yards to go,” said Riley, who was seventh in the 2006 state meet. “I was sprinting all the way. It was a great race. He’s a great runner.”
This was Schwartz’s second state meet. Last year, he finished well behind the leaders. “I didn’t do so good,” he said. “I was really nervous.”
When a coach told Schwartz that he was Bakersfield’s first Division I winner, Schwartz raised both arms in the air and threw back his head to look skyward.
On Saturday, Schwartz said his goal was a top-5 finish. But Rietz said he figured it would be a tight finish, based on times of state leaders on the Dyestatcal.com Web site, which tracks the top cross country times.
“He was ranked third a couple of days ago (behind Sullivan and Walters), but they had a little write-up that said if Chris ran his best race he could take it,” Rietz said. “He ran an almost perfect race.”
Schwartz came into the state meet with the fastest high school time on the Woodward Park course this year, a 15:21 at the Clovis Invitational. He ran 15:31 at the Central Section Championships.
Rietz said in the two weeks since the Central Section Championships, the focus has been on Schwartz’s performance while running down the hills at Woodward Park.
“At Valley, he’d pull ahead going up but he’d relax and people would close on him going down,” Rietz said. “The one thing we focused on was going hard both ways.”
Schwartz’s time of 15:13 was the second-fastest of the day. German Fernandez of Riverbank, near Modesto, won the Div. IV race in a course-record 14:24. The old record was 14:38.
McFarland entered the meet as the slight favorite in Div. IV boys ahead of Berkeley-St. Mary’s, but Big Bear made it back-to-back titles with a 101 score. St. Mary’s was second with 135 and McFarland scored 142.
“We were trying to reel in those teams, but in the end, they reeled us in,” said McFarland coach Amador Ayon. “I thought this was our year.”
But 1 mile into the race, Ayon said he became uneasy. The first hill on the Woodward Park course saw his runners with slightly slower times from last week’s Central Section Masters Meet. “I thought we went out good, but when we hit the hill it didn’t look good,” Ayon said.
“It’s a war out there. You’ve got to lay it all out there at crunch time. … It feels like a failed season.”
McFarland has only one senior, Jesus Gomez, who had the Cougars’ best time, a 16:34.
“I started out good and looked forward to the guys in front of me,” Gomez said. “Then I felt my legs seem heavier, and my arms felt heavier. Then I had to tell myself not to give up.”
Gomez added: “Third place is better than no place. We’ve got to train harder for next year. I’m the only guy who’s gone. The rest of the team will be there.”
In the Division I girls race, North High junior Candace Carlson, Kern County’s top girls runner this season, started out quickly but was never in contention. She placed 84th in 19:28. She placed fourth in the Central Section Championships two weeks earlier in 19:04.
“The state meet is so much harder than Valley,” Carlson said. “This sucked. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel very good.”
Brianna Diaz, a Delano High senior who has been among the top girls runners in Kern County this season, was also unhappy with her race. She placed 80th in Division II with a 19:45.
“I could’ve done better,” said Diaz, who said her pre-race goal was placing in the top-10. “I needed to push myself harder in the first mile.”
Bakersfield Christian, which qualified as a team for Division V girls, did not field a complete team. Coach Derik Watson said two girls opted to stay home to prepare for the soccer season and another was out of town for the holidays.
