Dedication paying off for Castilleja Dedication paying off for Castilleja (November 16, 2005)

by Keith Peters

Ashley Schoettle, by her own admission, was a recreational runner her first two years on the Castilleja cross-country team.

"The first two years I was at the low end of the team," she said. "I just did it for the fun."

The proverbial light bulb then clicked on. Maybe it was the fact a little work was getting her nowhere and the realization that a lot of work would take her someplace.

"After my sophomore year I decided to get serious," she said. "I just realized I could do better. I was a driven person and decided to have a goal rather than being a recreational runner."

Schoettle's goal-setting coincided with the Gators losing a lot of senior talent in 2003, the last of three straight Central Coast Section championship-winning teams.

While the team winning streak ended in 2004, Castilleja's streak of qualifying for the CIF State Championships did not. Schoettle won the CCS Division V individual title in 2004 and repeated that feat Saturday with her second straight crown, giving the Gators the individual champ four years running.

Schoettle ran a personal record of 18:42 over the rolling 2.95-mile Crystal Springs layout in Belmont, improving her previous best by nearly 30 seconds. She was joined in the top 10 by fellow senior teammate Tomi Amos (sixth in 20:35) and sophomores Kim Kilgroe (eighth in 20:50) and Sonja Swenson (ninth in 20:50). Sophomore Ellery Dake finished 17th in 21:55 to round out the Gators' second-place effort of 33 points, good for yet another team trip to the state meet Nov. 26 at Woodward Park in Fresno.

Castilleja missed winning the division title by four points, which was a big surprise to first-year coach Tom Allen.

"Second place was pretty much automatic," said Allen, a Gunn High grad. "First place would have taken a really good run. But, on paper we were supposed to lose by 16 points . . . I was incredibly impressed."

While Castilleja qualified its entire team, Woodside Priory junior Chrissa Trudelle finished 10th in 20:54 and Pinewood junior Megan Endersby was 13th in 21:27, both earning state meet berths.

The Palo Alto girls will join Castilleja at the state finals after the Vikings held off Mitty for third place in the Division II race.

"We ran pretty well," said Paly coach Paul Jones, "but we are capable of running a fair amount better than we did."

Paly scored 110 points to Mitty's 117, while favored Aptos (49) and Los Gatos (73) grabbed the top two spots as expected. Third place, though, was up for grabs.

Juniors Renata Cummins and Alicia Ivanhoe paced Paly. Cummins ran 18:42 for sixth while Ivanhoe clocked a big PR of 18:48 for seventh. Those two finishes gave the Vikings a 19-point bulge over Mitty's first two finishers. Senior Katy Gosling added to the lead with a 20th place in a PR of 19:36.

Seniors Elle Burstein (20:14) and Emily Lundy (20:33) rounded out Paly's scorers.

"Gosling ran well and Alicia ran really well," Jones said.

Paly's post-race excitement of qualifying for the state meet was tempered by Cummins's collapse after finishing. Suffering from a cold, Cummins had to be taken from the course on a stretcher by South County paramedics and transported in an ambulance to Kaiser Hospital in Redwood City.

"They gave her an IV," Jones said Sunday. "She's fine. She was supposed to be going to a play last night (Saturday). She'll be back to practice this week."

Not all of the Paly boys will be at practice this week. The Vikings didn't get the races they needed at the bottom of their lineup and wound up finishing sixth. Seniors Scott Himmelberger and Francis Reynolds, however, both earned state meet berths.

Himmelberger clocked his second straight PR (15:39) while taking second in the Division II race with Reynolds grabbing sixth in 16:02.

They'll be joined in Fresno by Gunn senior Carl Reid, while Gunn freshman Allie Mayer will represent the girls' team after a personal record of 18:39 got her fourth overall.

The Gunn boys finished fourth with 119 points. North Monterey County took the final state berth with 110 points. The Gunn girls ran sixth with 150 points. Gunn coach Ernie Lee was more than pleased with both efforts.

"In the boys' race, all five of our scorers PR'd," Lee said. "So, although we missed out on the state meet by nine points, it was a remarkable run just to get that close."

The pre-race estimates had the Gunn boys scoring 149 points, but the Titans finished ahead of league champ Palo Alto and beat Mountain View by 27 points (after finishing just three in front in league).

Reid's PR moved him to No. 21 on Gunn's all-time list, just behind Lee at No. 20 and ahead of Gunn assistant Matt Tompkins (at No. 29).

"His goal for the year was to beat both of us," Lee said, "and he almost did."

Mayer's 18:39 moved her to No. 5 on the Gunn girls' all-time list and erased Joanne Reid's freshman school record of 18:44 in the league finals.

While Gunn's streak of having five straight girls' CCS champions and sending a boys team to the state for four years both ended, two others survived. The Titans now have had a girl finish in the top five every year since 1996 and Gunn remains as one of only two schools (the other is Los Gatos) to have qualified a runner to the state meet in every year of the state meet's existence - 19 in a row since 1987.

In the Division V boys' race, Sacred Heart Prep qualified its team to the state meet with a third-place finish. Junior Kramer Straube earned his second trip to Fresno with a second-place finish of 16:17 while sophomore Alex Navarro, whose No. 1 sport is swimming, finished fifth in 16:35. Other team members going to state are Billy Rowan, Jun Kristofferson and Kevin Reynolds.

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