Cross country outlook: Milpitas' Yohaness Estifanos, Gunn's Sarah Robinson set high goals
By Glenn Reeves greeves@bayareanewsgroup.com Posted: 09/12/2012 12:44:36 PM PDT Updated: 09/12/2012 01:09:29 PM PDT Yohaness Estifanos won the Central Coast Section Division I boys cross country championship last year, joining the elite group to have gotten under the 15-minute barrier on the 2.95-mile Crystal Springs course with a time of 14 minutes, 59 seconds. And Estifanos, who finished sixth in the 3,200 meters at the state track and field championships, did all that as a junior. He is back for his senior year at Milpitas with high hopes as the cross country season begins. He listed his goals as: "Top 5 at the state meet. Under 14:50 at Crystal Springs, Win CCS again." Estifanos ran his first race of the season at the Lynbrook Center Meet and broke former Monta Vista standout Kevin Bishop's course record by 30 seconds, clocking 9:52.6 on the 2-mile course. He will take part in the Lowell Invitational on Saturday in San Francisco. "I think he's going to have a pretty exciting season," Milpitas coach Bridget Hall said. Sarah Robinson had a terrific season for Gunn as a sophomore. She won the CCS Division I girls championship in 17:12, nearly a full minute faster than the second-place finisher. Then she finished third in the Division I race at the cross country state finals. Robinson did all that despite having her time for cross country training limited by her soccer commitments as a member of the U.S. under-17 team. Robinson, who has given an oral commitment to play soccer for Stanford, has a new cross country coach at Gunn this season -- Craig Blockhus, the 1986 CCS 3,200-meter champion when he was running for Mountain View. "I told her I can train you to run and do well on your talent level alone or I can train you to win state," Blockhus said. "She let me know she wanted to be on the winning state route." A number of other outstanding runners are also returning for the 2012 season. The first big invitational of the season, the Earlybird Invitational, took place Saturday at Toro Park in Salinas. Leland's Richard Ho placed second in the senior boys race in 15:20 on the 3-mile course. Andrew Hill's Miguel Vasquez was third (15:40), Carlmont's Daniel Bereket fourth (15:48) and Bellarmine College Prep's Raymond Meijer fifth (15:49), All of those times were in the top six overall among 1,107 boys who ran at Toro Park that day. Saratoga's Steven Sum won the sophomore boys race in 15:57, followed by Chris Foster of Los Gatos (16:00). Danielle Katz of Los Gatos took second in the girls Division I race in 18:32. Monta Vista's Jenny Xu won the sophomore girls race (19:12) and Fremont's Jacqueline Escalera was the winner in the freshman girls race (19:58). Other top returning girls runners include Leland's Alyssa Johnson, Lynbrook's Grace Ling and Westmoor's Kylie Goo. Johnson was third in the senior girls race at the Earlybird meet (19:15) and Goo was fifth (19:44). Ling took second in the sophomore race (19:39), followed by Homestead's Hannah Allen, who was third in 19:51.