Schneider, a Fremont junior, ran 11:43.1 to finish a full seven seconds ahead of his nearest rival, Herrel Siller Jr. (11:50.1), a senior from Palo Alto. Milpitas senior Eric Day (11:55.8) finished third.

Siller helped Paly to a third-place berth in the team standings, but it was Los Gatos taking home the title.

Sophomore Matthew Petrillo (12:06.4), who was coming off of a Firebird Invitational win, was fourth to lead the Wildcats. Less than 15 seconds later came the second of the five point scorers for Gatos.

Junior Seth Smart (12:20.8) was 10th overall, helping the Wildcats toward their victory. Sophomore Jon Berthet (12:42.2) followed his two teammates across the finish line in 19th. Less than a full second after Berthet came in another sophomore, Jimmy Jatho (12:43.1), who joined the pack of finishers at 21st. Freshman Michael Johnson (12:50.2) made it official for the Cats, finishing 29th to round out the top five for Gatos.

The Los Gatos girls ran just as well as the boys, beating Cupertino to take the team title in the Central Park run.

Jill Goodwin (14:30.2), a sophomore, led the pack for Los Gatos, finishing in fifth place. Just seconds later came freshman Kaela Townsend (14:32.4) in seventh place. Junior Ariana Nicewonger (15:01.8) was 18th and sophomore Samantha Peppard (15:07.4) was 19th with the final Los Gatos runner just behind them. Less than two seconds later, Los Gatos would finish its top five with junior Jacqui Kemp (15:09.0) 21st.

The Gatos championship was impressive, considering the instructions given by head coach Monica Townsend prior to the race.

"The girls were instructed to run the race together as a hard workout," said Townsend. "They went through the first mile at a good pace together and relaxed. Over the course of the second mile they built up through the pack of runners."

Sophomore Kristy Barker (24th in 15:13) and senior Allie Lemon (25th in 15:14) rounded out the Gatos pack.

In the same meet, the Los Gatos girls won the junior varsity title with a low 25 points.

Freshman Erin Fabris ran 15:15 to win the race and sophomore Paige Knudsen was third. Stephanie Girsback finished sixth, Callie Mulgannon seventh, Ashley Kita eighth and Chelsea Duckham 10th.

The Gatos girls finished an outstanding week by taking the varsity and frosh-soph titles at the Half Moon Bay Artichoke Invitational on Oct. 2.

Townsend led Cats by finishing sixth with Nicewonger ninth, Goodwin 22nd, Peppard 28th and Kemp 32nd.

Gatos ran past top-ranked Aptos and beat Monta Vista and Mitty in the invitational.

Fabris ran 15:24 to top all Gatos finishers in the frosh-soph division, leading the Cats to the team title.

Girsback and Adrianne Smits led the LG girls to a team fifth in the junior varsity division.