The Sunnyvale Sun

Sports

Shiokawa, Nicholls run to wins at Firebird

By MIKE BARNHART

Junior Sumika Shiokawa of Cupertino High School has picked up where she left off in 2005, as one of the Central Coast Section's best female cross country runners. In her first three meets of the season, she has impressed with two victories and a third place, including the girls championship at the 10th annual Firebird Invitational at Fremont.

Shiokawa, who capped her sophomore season last November by running fourth in CCS Division III and 23rd at the state meet, won the Firebird race for the second year in a row. This time she beat 92 other runners from 18 schools, covering the flat, 2.05-mile course over Fremont's athletic fields in 12 minutes, 11 seconds.

Mountain View had five finishers among the top 11 and easily won the varsity girls team title. Runner-up Homestead's Emily Evans (eighth place) and Kristen Peanasky (ninth) both clocked 12:59, just ahead of Priya Pappu (13:00) of The King's Academy. The Mustangs' 89 points were followed by third-place Cupertino (120), King's (126), Los Altos (144), Saratoga (163), Lynbrook (171) and Wilcox (232).

Finishing among the top 20 and earning medals were Lynbrook senior MayC Huang (12th) in 13:04, TKA's Kristen Butelo (13th) in 13:05, Wilcox's Peiley Lau (14th) in 13:05 and Homestead's Rachell Moll (15th) in 13:07.

Finishing out of the medals and contributing to Homestead's second-place finish were Laura Pochowski (22nd) and Koressa Eldredge (35th). Monica Monari (27th), Emily Henderson (29th) and Monica Junge (47th) helped TKA get fourth.

Others among the top 50 included Katie Winegarden (37th) and Maria Gonzalez (48th) of Wilcox, Taj Forohouri (41th) and Emerald Chun (49th) of Homestead and Fremont's Alexa Wallin (42nd).

In the varsity boys' race, won by Alec Nicholls (10:11) of Los Altos, Fremont's Elijah Carrillo (10:34) was seventh with TKA's Sean Robinson (10:51) 10th and Homestead's Nick Oliver (10:55) 12th.

Wilcox's Pablo Tejera (11:00) was 16th and TKA's Matt Giusti (17th) and Wilcox's Daniel Tejera (18th) both ran 11:07. Alexander Colbeth of Homestead (11:14) placed 20th to earn the final boys' medal.

Mountain View (94) edged Homestead by six points for the team crown. Rishi Agrawal (11:10) Sameer Tharakan (11:22) and Morgan Quail (11:30) ran 23-24-31 for the runner-up Mustangs. Cupertino (114 points) was third, two points better than fourth-place Wilcox. Saratoga was seventh with 199 points, TKA eighth with 214, Lynbrook ninth with 225 and host Fremont 12th.

Saratoga runners claimed victories in two non-varsity races. Alan Menezes romped 10:56 to win the frosh-soph boys contest, and Karen Wai's time of 13:10 was best in the junior varsity girls competition.