Several standout athletes from the Carmel Valley area competed in the 65th edition of the prestigious Mt. SAC Track and Field Relays held at the Mt. San Antonio College campus in Walnut on April 17-19.
In the boys’ distance medley relay, which included 50 competing teams, Canyon Crest Academy placed 13th with a new school record time of 10:27.14. The team was composed of Luca Caruso (taking on the 1200-meter leg), Lukas Ferrando (400 meters), Nolan Zerboni (800 meters), and Cruz Espinoza (1600 meters).
The Raven runners were closely followed by a relay team from Torrey Pines High School in 14th place (Ian See, Kian Massoud, Zach Dawson and Ryan Chelesnik) and Cathedral Catholic High School in 15th place (Teddy Lang, Zander Wallace, Aiden Angeles, Nathan Wilber).
Herriman High School from Utah won the event, posting the fastest time in the country this season with 10:00.25.
On the girls’ side, the Canyon Crest Academy’s 4×1600 relay placed fourth out of 57 teams, with a school record time of 21:07.59. The record-setting Raven team included runners Lillian Pippel, Lina Hellberg, Natalie O’Dell and Katja Dunayevich.
In the 4×1600 race, a team from Torrey Pines placed eighth (Sophia Lesser, Charlotte Sach, Evelyn Lawson and Izzy Wallingford), and Cathedral Catholic finished in 12th place (Callie Schulteis, Grace Keefe, Eva Smith and Natalia Velayudhan).
The track season wraps up with league finals, CIF championships, sectionals and the state championships in May.
