Every year the Desert Vista boys and girls teams travel to different venues in California with the boys heading to Woodbridge and the girls to Mt. Sac. This year the girls joined the boys in California giving up the massive hills at Mt. Sac for the flat fast course at the Woodbridge Invitational.
Both teams ran in the Sweepstakes Race and did well with the boys placing 17th out of 237 teams and the girls finishing 4th out of 236 teams.
Dani Jones' (Jr) awe-inspiring run put her in 6th place with a time of 16:45 while younger sister Baylee (Fr) landed in 28th in 17:28 and Nicole Hicks (Sr) finished 31st in 17:30. Also adding to the 4th place finish were freshmen Madi Bucci ((69th) and Sabrina Camino (79th). There were 196 runners in the race.
"My goal was to get top ten and to break 17 minutes," said Dani after the race, "but I was not expecting to do as well as I did."
When asked if she would miss being at Mt. Sac this year, Dani's response was, "Mt. Sac has a big atmosphere and you have to stay relaxed through the first mile of the race because the rest is so tough. Woodbridge is different because you know the course is going to be fast so you have all this adrenaline and you just have to go or it's going to leave without you."
One thing is for sure, the girls enjoyed the different venue and being part of a bigger team. "We had so much fun," Dani continued, "it was fun to have an extra group (the boys team) to support us."
The next 7 girls for DV ran in the Varsity Race and finished 3rd overall behind The Woodlands from Texas the Great Oak from California.
Sophomore Xavier Esparza was the top runner for Desert Vista finishing in 59th place with a time of 15:10 over the 3 mile course. Jacob Walimaa (Sr) was just 8 seconds behind to place 72nd followed by Alex Hoyt in 86th place (15:27); Kyle Havriliak (Jr) in 89th place (15:27) and Ben Davis in 93rd place (15:29).
With the success of the Woodbridge meet behind them the DV team looks toward the Twilight Invitational on October 4th.