OCEANSIDE – As Torrey Pines High junior Megan Morgan ran in yesterday's Southern California Invitational cross country meet, her coaches kept shouting at her, “Molly's in front of you, Molly's in front of you.”
Only Molly, in this case Rancho Bernardo's Molly Grabill, wasn't in front of her. She wasn't even in the race. It was just the coaches' way of trying to keep Morgan focused.
You'd think that Morgan would be thrilled to discover that Grabill, who is clearly the dominant runner in the section so far this year, had decided to rest up for next weekend's Mt. SAC Invitational.
Morgan had been beaten by the Broncos sophomore in all four head-to-head battles this season.
“I expected her to be here; I'm bummed she wasn't,” said Morgan, who took advantage of Grabill's absence to easily capture the race for each team's No. 1 runner, clocking a time of 13-minutes, 58-seconds over Guajome Park's 2.4-mile course.
To no one's surprise, it was Morgan's teammate, Alli Billmeyer, who had the day's second-fastest performance, winning the race for the No. 2 runners in 13:59.
They're that close in practice and in competition. But Morgan missed a chance to run against Grabill even though it would mean almost certain defeat.
“When she's in the race, we all run faster,” Morgan explained. “It's a lot easier to follow someone else, and now I'm even more impressed with how Molly runs because it's hard to lead.”
She didn't make it look difficult, opening a 25-second gap over runner-up Michelle Cruz of Vista by the finish line.
Billmeyer had an even larger lead between her and La Costa Canyon's Shanoah Souza – 39 seconds – in the No. 2 race.
“I love this course – it's fast,” said Billmeyer, who was injured for this meet a year ago. “I really think I'm better at track than cross country but this is more of a team sport, and I like that, too.”
As a team, the Falcons are ranked No. 4 in the state in Division I by Dyestat.com and showed off their depth yesterday when normal No. 5 or 6 runner Leah Stamer stepped up to No. 3 and placed second, getting outkicked in the final 50 meters by Escondido's Cristal Favela.
“It felt weird to run without my teammates but it was fun to have them cheering for me,” said Stamer, a junior. “This race I had to think and stuff. Usually I just follow Megan, Alli and Erin (Gillingham).”
Gillingham, the No. 3 runner, was off for a recruiting visit to Brown University, and two other top 7 runners had commitments to play club soccer.
Billmeyer spelled out the Falcons' expectations succinctly:
“We want to go to state and be in the Top 1,” she said. “We'll all need our best race but we can do it.”
On the boys' side, state Division III No. 6 Barstow was impressive, winning four of the six races and finishing second in the other two, including having Isaac Chavez run the fastest time of the day over the 3.1-mile course, 15:46.
