Northside boys, Young girls rule city

Font Size

Email

Bookmark

Black Text

White Text

It wasn't a perfect finish, but Cuitlahuac Pineda-Youniss couldn't complain too much.

The Northside Prep senior was nosed out by Lane's Kulayifi Haji for the individual title, but led the Mustangs to their first city championship at the Public League cross-country meet Saturday morning at Washington Park.

Northside edged Lane 50-59 for the title, with three-time defending champ Mather (64) finishing third.

"I was really frustrated, but ... we had a good race. I'm happy the team won," said Pineda-Youniss, whose three-mile time of 15 minutes, 37.16 seconds left him one-hundredth of a second behind Haji.

"I knew it was going to be close," said Haji, who was runner-up to Mather's Ivan Coronel in last year's Public League meet. "It feels good to win city, but our goal is to go to state as a team."

Northside had three more runners in the top 11: Cooper Eben (sixth, 15:51.59), Charlie Mesimore (ninth, 16:05.63) and Wesley Laytham (11th, 16:17.45).

Said Pineda-Youniss: "The key today was our fifth guy (Fahad Sarvari, who was 26th in 16:46.26). ... He had a PR by about 40 seconds."

"These guys have been working since June for this," Northside coach Jon Gordon said. "It gives us momentum heading into the (regional and) sectional."

Mather's Abdurahim Haji (15:42.59), Lake View's Oscar Medina (15:46.60) and Payton's Jose Mora (15:49.59) rounded out the top five.

Whitney Young's girls won their third straight city title, 20-84 over runner-up Lane. Dolphins senior Lavinia Jurkiewicz defended her individual championship, running 17:46.02 to win by more than 44 seconds.

Jurkiewicz was determined to push the pace after running 19:15.2 on a slow 5,000-meter course a week earlier in a meet at Walt Disney World in Florida.

"I know the race conditions weren't meant for running fast times in Florida, but I was still kind of unhappy with (being over) 19 minutes," Jurkiewicz said. "So I wanted to prove myself."

She did, setting a fast pace and taking a commanding lead early on.

"Watching Lindsay Flanagan (of Lake Park, the 2008 Class 3A state champ) last year always run races by herself, I was (thinking), 'I can do that. I guess I'll go for it,'" Jurkiewicz said.

"Today wasn't a fast course, either," Young coach Bob Geiger said. "For her to run like she did was pretty darn incredible."

Devyn Thompson (18:50.43), Rachel Joravsky (18:55.20) and Rori Nalls (18:59.27) finished 3-4-5 for Young behind Morgan Park's Nyala Eddings (18:30.77).