The San Benito High cross-country program accomplished the first of its three goals last week in the final regular-season meet of the season.
The Haybalers boys and girls won their respective Monterey Bay League Center Meet races at Toro Park in Salinas, helping the program to clinch the Avis Kelley Trophy, awarded to the school that accumulates the most points for the frosh-soph, junior varsity and varsity levels.
Winning the Avis Kelley Trophy was the program’s first goal. Goals two and three include winning Saturday’s Monterey Bay League Championships and finishing among the top three teams in the Nov. 16 Central Coast Section Championships, which would clinch a berth in the CIF State Meet.
“Winning the Avis Kelley Trophy is a huge honor,” San Benito boys’ coach Jess Morales said. “It shows you’re excelling at all levels. We’re going into league finals and CCS with an attitude. I think we opened some eyes with our performance last week, just showing what we’re made of.”
Morales was particularly pleased with his team’s final tune-up in preparation for Saturday’s league championship. The Balers literally ran away from the competition in last week’s regular-season finale, totaling 40 points to North Monterey County’s 62 (low point total wins).
It was a tour de force, as San Benito’s top four runners — Steven Velarde, Jose Ruiz, Juan Gutierrez and Elijah Changco — finished second, fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively.
“That was a big surprise right there (that we were able to dominate up front),” Morales said. “I have to give the boys props — they showed what they’re made of and ran the way I expected them to. Now we have to carry this momentum for MBLs.”
San Benito also received solid performances from Johnny Corral and Javier Azcona, who finished 23rd and 29th, respectively.
The San Benito girls were also impressive, winning a thrilling race against runner-up Salinas, 50-54. The Balers’ top five runners — Amy Quinones (1), Gabriella Alvarez (5), Katherine Monteon (6), Kassandra Ramos (17) and Anjelica Collins (21) — averaged out 1.5 seconds faster per runner compared to their Salinas counterparts.
Quinones finished the 3.0-mile course in 19:34, which was 23 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Malena Grover of Salinas. The scary thing for the rest of the league is out of San Benito’s top five runners, none of them are seniors.
Josh Morales, who took over the girls’ team in 2005, said he’s been a bit surprised the squad hasn’t really missed a beat despite graduating one of the school’s all-time great runners in Vanessa Estrada, who is now competing at Northern Arizona University.
“A lot of that has to do with being blessed with another frontrunner like Amy,” Morales said. “You need someone up front like Amy who leads by example. Amy is similar to Vanessa in terms of always wanting to get better and never being satisfied until she reaches her goals.”
Quinones’ attitude has spread to the rest of the team.
“The girls know what they have to do to win,” Morales said. “They’ve got a good thing going here, so there’s not much teaching or coaching in that they’re a pretty veteran group.”
