Huang, Nast finish among leaders at Firebird Invitational
By Kevin Sparrer
Kevin Schneider was a 'Bird who was flying when his school, Fremont, hosted the annual Firebird Invitational on Sept. 15.

Schneider finished first in the 2.05-mile cross country meet on the Fremont campus, running 10:09 to finish four seconds faster than the second-place finisher from Valley Christian-Dublin.

Despite Schneider's effort, though, Fremont was unable to place as a team in the race since the Firebirds had just four runners in the competition. It takes five runners to field a complete team in cross country. Elijah Carrillo was 10th for the Firebirds in 10:49.

Mtn. View earned 57 points with a combined time of 54:22 to finish first as a team. Saratoga ran up 96 points to finish second.

Kenneth Douglas led the Falcons with a fifth-place finish overall in 10:39. The next Falcon to complete the race was Bradley Jacobs who was seventh in 10:46. Henry Barmeier was 23rd in 11:16, Scott Surrette 30th in 11:31 and Kunuk Shin 31st in 11:33.

Lynbrook nailed fifth with Jason Wang ninth in 10:49, Paul Lee 29th in 11:30, Michael Liu 36th, Howard Liu 40th and Jonathan Tsai 55th.

Mtn. View also finished first in the girls division with The King's Academy second. Jessica Butelo was ninth overall, with Kristen Butelo 16th, Monica Monari 19th, Priya Pappu 26th and Emily Henderson 36th.

Lynbrook's MayC Huang raced to a third-place finish in 12:24 with teammates Cindy Ju 21st and Yvonne Fong 43rd.

Saratoga finished fifth overall with Katie Nast sixth in 12:34. Amanda Speedy was 10th overall in 12:51 and Katrin Cooper 22nd in 13:23.

Los Gatos was able to get a win in the frosh-soph boys race with Evan DuCharme second, Dylan Shawhan third, Rye Livingston 11th, Gabriel Ochoa 12th and Christian Fernandez 15th.

Saratoga was third as a team with Kian Banks fourth and Alan Menezes sixth.

After Saratoga was Lynbrook with Gene Burinsky finishing fifth and Andrew Lum coming in 24th.