"That was our goal today," said Tologs Coach Kirk Nishiyama, whose squad tallied 43 points to first-place Harvard-Westlake's 34 and third-place Notre Dame's 60. "I think we made [Harvard-Westlake] race today."
For St. Francis, after a scare at the scoring table, it was able to hold on to its third-place position — which it garnered in the first meet — behind a spirited run from junior Colin Peterson with 81 points behind first-place Loyola (28) and second-place Notre Dame (66) and just in front of Harvard-Westlake (83).
"I came in today and I told the guys every second counts, every place counts," said St. Francis Coach Pat Donovan. "This is a sport of seconds and individual places. … Meets like this really drive the point home. Everything counts up to the finish line and sometimes beyond."
The battle for third place came down to St. Francis' No. 5 runner Danny Velledao, who tumbled across the finish and created a domino effect of chaos. Upon first tally, Valledao was deemed to have finished 26th in 17 minutes 31 seconds and Harvard-Westlake had 83 points to St. Francis' 84. But upon further discussion, the change was made for Valledao finishing 24th in 17:28 and St. Francis vaulted ahead of Harvard-Westlake by a point. A third and final change was made to the final total, though it did not affect placement. Thus, officially, Velledao took 23rd in 17:28.
Locally, Glendale resident Richard Lucas of Notre Dame had the best finish, taking third in 15:51, as Loyola's Elias Geydon dominated to the tune of a first-place run of 15:44, while Notre Dame's Will Conway took second in 15:51.
Peterson led the St. Francis charge with a ninth-place mark of 16:17.
"Colin came in here today and he said his goal was to break 17 minutes," said Donovan, who saw all five of his top-five runners improve their times from the first league meet. "He came in and just destroyed it.
