XC Recap: Chabot Twilight

 

 

The De Anza men's and women's cross country teams returned from a bye week to a unique event. Chabot College hosted a meet featuring a 3,000 and 5,000 meter run for men and women on the track - organized in heats under the lights of their stadium. It was a very exciting event and featured some of the top runners in the state.  Ten men's teams and nine women's teams participated, but for the scoring each school needed to have at least two runners in the 3,000 and three runners in the 5,000. 

 

The De Anza women's team was the only school out of the nine to have the required number of minimum runners in each event to get a team score and therefore became the Team Champions. The Lions were led in the 5,000 race by Mannat Gill and Serena Geis who finished in first and second overall. Lydia Zertuche was fourth overall, followed by Jacklyn Velasquez in fifth.

 

Six women in total ran the 5,000 meter race and only Gill, the event champion, didn't run a personal best time. In the 3,000 Judith Dietz finished in sixth place overall to lead the trio of sophomore runners.  Elizabeth Kardach and Tammy Dinh finished in 12th and 13th, respectively.

 

 

The DA men finished in fourth out of the four in the team standings (out of the 4 teams who entered enough runners in each race). The highlight of the entire evening was Evan Franco (photo) winning the final race of the night featuring several top runners in the state. Franco's 5,000 meter time was 14:48.94 - beating Greg Egers' school record set in 1976 by .3 seconds.  It is the first time anyone has cracked the top ten in school history in 33 years. 

 

Franco made a move with about five laps to go to get some separation from a pack of 10 that had been running together and only one runner tried to keep up and Franco pulled away from him on the final lap to win the extremely fast race by 2.5 seconds over two conference foes from Hartnell, one of which beat him 2 weeks ago in the NorCal Preview meet.  Sean Stanich ran nearly a 1-minute lifetime best to finish in 32nd place overall, and Noah Gonzalez was next across for the Lions in 48th place.  

 

In the 3,000 for the men, Belayneh Salilew was first across for De Anza in 35th place followed by Austin Lin in his first race of the season for the men in 37th place. 

 

UP NEXT: The cross country teams will be in action next at the Toro Park Invite, Friday in Salinas.