The Bakersfield women’s cross country team placed 19th in the Southern California Championship, qualifying for the State Championship.
The team’s first runner to cross the finish line was freshman Clara Escutia, who finished 81st overall with a time of 21:36.
Escutia was followed by four other freshmen, and the team finished with a total team time of 1:50:29.
Two-time Western State Conference Coach of the Year Pam Kelley is proud of her team, and surprised by the all-freshman team’s performance this year.
“I think they did pretty good, considering they are a group of all freshmen,” Kelley said. “They’ve all been a surprise, because you never know what to expect when you have all freshman.”
The State Championship will take place on Nov. 20 at 10 a.m. at Woodward in Fresno.
Kelley is confident in her team’s ability at the Fresno course.
“Competing there will be nice for us because many of our kids have ran that course throughout high school,” Kelley said. “It’s a course they’ve ran a lot for valley championships. It’s close to home and it’s nice and well ran.”
Kelley said that the team has fought through injuries to qualify for State.
“We struggled most of the year with an injury or an illness with at least one person often,” she said. “The last two weeks we’ve finally had everybody healthy again, and they just continue to improve and get better, and that’s our goal.”
Kelley is glad at the timing of the injuries, though, and doesn’t think that the men’s team has had as much luck in that respect.
“The men’s cross country team had injuries, where our injuries occurred during the season and got better later in the season, the men’s injures occurred all late in the season,” she said. “And that’s hard because it was an uphill course to keep running because we have to face people no matter what injuries they have.”