Freshman Sarah Baxter has run just a handful races in her nascent high school career at Simi Valley High, but she’s already drawing plenty of notice.
On Thursday, Baxter led the Pioneers to wins over Royal, 23-38, and Thousand Oaks, 17-42, as the three girls’ teams opened Marmonte League competition at Simi Valley’s Corriganville Park in the three-way meet. Royal edged Thousand Oaks in the third result, 27-28.
On the boys’ side, Thousand Oaks won 24-32 over Simi Valley and 23-32 over Royal, which beat the Pioneers 26-29. Simi Valley senior Michael Vorgitch finished first in 16 minutes flat in front of Thousand Oaks’ Sam Worley (16:17) and Royal teammates Nico Gervasoni (16:25) and Sean Upson (16:26).
The day, though, belonged to Baxter. She finished her race at 17:38, setting a course record by cutting 13 seconds off the time Simi Valley’s Liberty Miller established just last season as a senior.
But while Miller and former teammate Anna Sperry set their school marks after four years of training and memorizing every nuance of courses like Corriganville, Baxter is posting record-setting times right out of the gate, like her time on the Fastback course at Mount San Antonio College two weeks ago. There she finished the race, of 1.92 miles, in 11:19, seven seconds better than Miller’s record.
“That’s when I knew the record (for Corriganville) was in jeopardy.” Simi Valley coach Roger Evans said. “Sarah, in her first high school race, broke a record held by Liberty Miller. Anna and Liberty were two elite runners who were running at the optimum level as seniors and now we get to see how far Sarah can advance.”
At the midpoint of the race, Baxter had already established a 30-second lead in front of the pack and would push it to nearly 80 seconds by the finish.
“”It would help if I had some other runners up there with me or ahead of me,” Baxter said, “but it lets me work on being up front by myself.”
Royal’s tandem of Kelly Upson (18:57) and Sophie Mateu (19:07) finished second and third, ahead of Simi Valley’s Erika Barr (19:11), Karla Vernola (19:12) and Madelyn Vorgitch (19:12) in fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively. That trio of runners for Simi Valley (Barr, Vernola and Vorgitch) along with senior Megan McNally (19:43) in ninth, helped seal the two victories for the Pioneers over what most consider to be their two toughest foes in league.
“They all really pushed up there and did a great job,” Evans said.
Rounding out the top 10 for the girls were, for the Lancers, Melanie Joerger (19:33) in seventh, Caitlin Turner (19:41) in eighth and Kalin Padberg (19:51) in 10th.
In the boys’ race, the Lancers were able to take two wins on the strength of a team effort that saw Thousand Oaks place a runner sixth through ninth, to back up Worley’s effort just behind race leader Vorgitch. Matt Garvin (16:44), Michael Spencer (16:55), Tommy Lopez (16:57) and Zach Morgan (17:02) all helped the Lancers to victory.
“Running on Simi’s home course, mentally and strategically, was tough,” Thousand Oaks coach Shawn Morris said. “This is a course (that rewards strength) with a lot of sand and we really talked about how to approach that in the race today.”
Simi Valley’s Francisco Moncada (16:36) finished fifth and the Highlanders’ Corrigan Johnson (17:05) finished 10th.
