Morro Bay High School hosted the annual Morro Bay Cross Country Invitational Saturday, September 8. The meet included a total of 6 races: Girls varsity, Boys varsity, Girls JV, Boys JV, Boys Freshman, and Girls freshman. This year’s event showcased a new 3 mile course and brought roughly 1000 runners from as far as Mayfield.
MBHS was well represented in all 6 races of the day, taking full advantage of the prime weather conditions and the team’s experience with sand. In the Girls varsity race, Adrienne Frere and Anelise Dempsey were the top 2 finishers for MBHS, both placing in the top 15 overall. Colby Ratzat and Zach Moore were the top MBHS finishers in the Boys varsity race. Carola De Gara, a foreign exchange student at MBHS was the first finisher in the Girls JV race, followed by Olivia Fernflores.
Frere felt her performance was “pretty good” and attributed her success to setting a “strong pace from the beginning.” Like many of her fellow racers, Frere said that the soft sand was the most difficult part of the race, and hopes to improve next time by “picking up the knees more”. Frere told The Spyglass that to celebrate her success she will “go home, roll, ice, stretch…the usual.”
Legendary MBHS Coach and teacher Cary Nerelli started each race by shooting the traditional pistol blank. The course stated around the East baseball field and then continued around the track to the West field before winding through the tree tunnel onto the beach. The course is known as one of the most difficult meets of the season due to a mile sand soft run in the middle of the race.
