Yucaipa boys and girls sweep Citrus Belt League opener;
Citrus Valley's Claire Graves makes immediate impact in new league

By Erik Boal, DyeStatCAL Editor

Claire Graves picked up Wednesday where she left off Saturday at the Woodbridge Classic. 

And so did the Yucaipa girls cross country team.

Graves (file photo above by Donal Pearce) made an instant impact in her Citrus Belt League debut, but even the dominance of the Citrus Valley sophomore wasn't enough to overshadow Yucaipa's depth in the cluster meet at Cajon High.

After placing fifth in the Bob Day sweepstakes race at Woodbridge -- posting the fastest time among all sophomores -- Graves covered the 3-mile course Wednesday in 17 minutes, 44.1 seconds to lead a trio of 10th-graders taking the top three spots, including runner-up Mackenna Mason of Yucaipa (18:35.4) and Redlands East Valley's Samantha Aguilar (18:43.9).

"I just tried to stay focused as much as possible and treat it like any other race. I got back into training and worked out for the two days in between and tried to make the best of it," Graves said. "No matter what, whether it's Woodbridge or league, it's still a race and you treat it the same and go out and give it your all."

Yucaipa relied on Mason's performance supported by four seniors -- Arianna Garcia-Swantek (18:51.5), Sydney Vollhardt (19:04.7), Kendai Davis (19:15.8) and Justine Jackson (19:17.4) -- who placed fifth through eighth to post a 28-59 victory over Citrus Valley.

Yucaipa's split among its top five runners at Woodbridge was 19 seconds. The gap was 42 seconds Wednesday, but after Citrus Valley's team time was 30 seconds faster Saturday than Yucaipa, the Thunderbirds responed by being 2:20 faster Wednesday than the Blackhawks.

"I was just hoping to get into the top 10. But I felt good about being in second going into the last mile and when I started to kick, I felt pretty strong, so I just kept going," Mason said. "We showed that we can do a lot of good things as a group. Claire is so fast, but we wanted to put four or five in front of their second or third runner and we were able to do that."

Citrus Valley had all five of its scorers in the top 20 to finish comfortably in front of third-place Redlands (81 points), led by freshman Isabelle Swanson in fourth (18:50.8).

"I'm proud of how our team ran. This race was good for us to learn how the rest of the group needs to run and where we need to be faster," Graves said. "I'm trying to motivate the girls as much as possible to let them know they can do it because right now it's all about team. We just have to keep the right mindset. It's different type of league and a different level of competition, so I'm happy how we're handling it."

Yucaipa enjoyed an even more convincing victory in the boys competition, with Thomas Durham (15:50.9) and Tanner Dutchover (16:06.8) taking the top two spots to produce a 21-62 triumph over Redlands East Valley, led by Christian Sharp (16:09.2) placing third and Elias Opsahl (16:17.8) finishing fifth.

"We did what we needed to do. We wanted to make our coaches happy and take care of business," Durham said. "This says a lot about our team. We work hard every week and coming out here and it's motivation for everyone to come out here and do their part. I was a little tired when I was warming up, but once the race started, it all went away and adrenaline took over. I guess (the strength) was still there."

Erik Hagen (16:14.6) was fourth, Jake Keller (16:20.3) took sixth, with Manny Madrid (16:23.2) and Colt Bosson (16;25.3) placing eighth and ninth for Yucaipa, which had six runners in the top nine. Homero Orozco (16:21.5) was seventh for third-place Cajon (72 points).