Girls Run to League Title

Several runners posted personal-best times as the Palisades High varsity girls’ cross country team won the Western League championship last Wednesday at Pierce College. Palisades aaccumulated a low score of 36 to outdistance University (55), Hamilton (74) and Venice (80). Leading the way for the Dolphins was sophomore Kristabel Doebel-Hickok, who ran the three-mile course in her fastest time yet’19:52’to finish second overall. Fellow 10th-grader Angela Perry-Spahn shaved 53 seconds off of her best time to finish third in 20:06 while freshman Heather Mitchell was ninth in a personal-best 22:20. Also scoring for Palisades were seniors Lia Holman (22:21), Michelle Mahanian (23:02) and Rachel Yankelevich (25:09) and freshman Tanya Armstrong (23:30). The victory assured the Dolphins a spot in yesterday’s City Section preliminaries. The City finals are next Saturday morning. Palisades coach Ron Brumel believes the girls’ varsity division may be the fastest it has ever been. ‘The top 10 girls in the City can all run under 19 minutes,’ he said.. ‘I can’t remember it ever being this tough. But I’m confident our girls can make the finals.’ Also qualifying for the preliminary meet was Palisades’ frosh/soph boys squad. The Dolphins’ 22 points almost lapped second-place Venice (40). Sophomore Jann Stavro was first in 18:35’a personal best by 23 seconds’while Patrick Finlan placed third in 19:13, Jason Kil was fifth in 19:39, Jeff Boone was sixth in 19:46 and Abraham Herrera was seventh in 19:52, bettering his previous-best by 29 seconds. ‘Our frosh/soph boys team doesn’t have any superstars but they do a good job of clustering and everyone’s improving,’ Brumel said. ‘They could go to the [City] finals too.’ Venice won the boys’ varsity race for the fifth consecutive year. Senior Monte Doebel-Hickok (17:34) was the Dolphins’ top finisher in eighth-place while junior Eric Milne ran a personal-best 18:59, followed by fellow 11th-graders Zach Balin (19:07) and Ryan Cline (20:06). Sophomore Andrew Longaker (20:39) and senior Austin Ahn (21:16) rounded out the Palisades scorers.