The weekly climb to high school cross country supremacy continues Friday and Saturday with the Orange County Championships.
The annual meet, open exclusively to O.C. runners and teams, is at Oak Canyon Park in Silverado. It’s another challenging test for county runners as they prepare for the CIF Southern Section meets and perhaps even the CIF State championships in November.
Many of the county’s top athletes and teams in boys and girls cross country will be there.
The Woodbridge boys team, led by junior Aidan Antonio, is entered. Antonio this season finished first in the Dana Hills Invitational, fifth in the Woodbridge Classic and sixth in the sweepstakes race at last week’s Clovis Invitational. He is a leading candidate for Orange County boys cross country athlete of the year.
San Clemente’s boys team will also compete in the O.C. Championships. San Clemente junior Yohan Anderson finished first in the Laguna Hills Invitational and eighth at the Clovis Invitational. The Tritons have another standout junior, Mattheus Dos Santo.
The JSerra, Santa Margarita and Trabuco Hills boys teams also are entered. In the CIF Southern Section boys rankings, Woodbridge is No. 1 in Division 2, JSerra is No. 1 in Division 4, San Clemente is No. 3 in Division 1, Trabuco Hills is No. 7 in Division 1 and Santa Margarita is No. 7 in Division 3.
JSera’s girls will run in the Orange County meet. The Lions are No. 1 in Division 4 in the CIF-SS and CIF State rankings. (Rich Gonzalez of PrepCalTrack.com provides CIF-SS and CIF State rankings.)
Other girls teams in the county meet are El Toro and Santa Margarita, who share the No. 1 ranking in CIF State Division 3, and Trabuco Hills which is No. 3 in CIF State Division 1.
JSerra has its usual stars and depth. Led by a ninth-place finish by freshman Maya Pawlowicz and a 10th-place run by junior Reese Holley, JSerra was the team champion in the Clovis Invitational girls sweepstakes race that is called the Bill Buettner Girls Championship race.
The Clovis Invitational last week was run at Woodward Park in Fresno, on the same course that will be used for the CIF State meet on Nov. 29.
JSerra won its seventh CIF State girls cross country championship last year and fourth state title in a row. The team looks ready to add an eighth state title.
Lions coach Chase Frazier likes the progress the team is making in meets and in workouts.
“They’re coming together as a full unit,” Frazier said after a team run this week. “Every workout, every day’s a battle out here. There is so much talent here that it keeps the bar very high every week.”
JSerra will run at the county meet Saturday without Kaia Streadbeck, a sophomore who finished 16th in the Woodbridge Classic and 20th in the Clovis Invitational. She is resting after dealing with tight calves. There still will be plenty of JSerra depth, including senior Chloe Elbaz, who was 22nd at Clovis, and freshman Brooklyn Tennant, who was 24th in Clovis.
Irvine senior Summer Wilson, the second-place finisher at Clovis, is expected to run Saturday as are Trabuco Hills senior Millie Bayles, who is coming off a fifth-place finish at Clovis. Another contender in the girls sweepstakes could be Santa Margarita junior Carol Dye, whose many highlights last school year when she was at San Juan Hills included a seventh-place finish in the CIF-SS finals.
With temperatures around Oak Canyon Park on Saturday probably reaching the mid-80s, the day’s bigger races were moved to earlier in the day. The boys sweepstakes race is scheduled for 8:15 a.m., followed by the girls sweepstakes race at 8:35 a.m. Parking at the Orange County meet is $20.
Frazier said that while for his group the Woodbridge Classic and the Clovis Invitational are the larger regular-season meets, especially the Clovis meet – “to run against the top three teams in the state on the state course is important,” he said – the Orange County meet still has plenty going for it.
“The Orange County Championships are always fun for the individual accolades to be among the top in your class,” Frazier said.
NOTES
• Beckman’s boys cross country team, ranked seventh in California and fourth in CIF-SS Division 1, is not in the Orange County meet. The Patriots, led by senior Mason Nguyen’s ninth-place finish, finished fourth in the Clovis Invitational. Beckman’s boys will compete in the Mt. SAC Invitational next week. The Mt. SAC course is the course for the CIF-SS prelims Nov. 14 and 15 and the CIF-SS finals Nov. 22. …
• Fall sports playoffs are coming soon. Release dates for fall sports team playoff brackets: flag football, Friday, 2 p.m.; girls volleyball, Saturday, 10 a.m.; boys water polo, Oct. 24, 2 p.m.; girls tennis, Nov. 1, 10 a.m.; 11-player football, Nov. 2, 10 a.m.; 8-player football, Nov. 2, 1 p.m. …
• Considering how good the league is in the sport, Los Alamitos finishing 12-0 in Sunset League girls volleyball is a great achievement. …
• Mater Dei senior volleyball player Layli Ostovar has been selected to play in the 2026 Under Armour All-America Volleyball Game on Jan. 1 in Florida. Ostovar was the 2024 Orange County girls volleyball player of the year. …
• Mater Dei’s 7-6 football loss to Santa Margarita last Friday was the Monarchs’ first football loss to anyone other than St. John Bosco since 2015, and their first football loss to an Orange County team since a loss to JSerra in 2015. …
• Saddleback quarterback Andre Scott threw for 518 yards and five touchdowns in a 60-21 win over Savanna in a Zeta League game last week. The Roadrunners are 6-2 overall and 2-0 in the five-team league. …
• Next week, the next-to-last-week of the football regular season, includes these games on Oct. 24: Servite at St. John Bosco; Orange Lutheran vs. Santa Margarita at Trabuco Hills High; Los Alamitos at San Clemente; Mission Viejo vs. Edison at Huntington Beach High; Villa Park at San Juan Hills; Huntington Beach at Crean Lutheran; and Laguna Beach at Dana Hills. The Oct. 23 schedule includes Capistrano Valley at El Modena and Western at Tustin.
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Orange County girls athlete of the week: Summer Wilson, Irvine Orange County boys athlete of the week: Aidan Antonio, Woodbridge Strong showing by JSerra girls at Woodbridge Classic cross country meet Woodbridge Classic always a bright spot in the cross country season JSerra girls cross country dominates in PR City InvitationalHence then, the article about fryer top teams ready to run in orange county cross country championships was published today ( ) and is available on The Orange County Register ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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