The East Union boys and Ripon girls cross country teams captured varsity titles in the Kim Duyst Twilight Invitational held Saturday at River Oaks Golf Course in Ceres.
East Union outpointed Downey 62-83 for the boys varsity 5-kilometer championship. Ripon placed third with 94 out of the 11 complete squads that entered.
Cooper Freeman paced the Lancers with a third-place finish in 15 minutes, 48.1 seconds, finishing behind Sonora’s 1-2 combo of Adin Dibble (15:32.9) and Broen Holman.
Evan Cooper took 10th in 16:53.6, a lifetime best for the EU senior. Rounding out scoring for the Lancers were Johnny Sandoval (13th, 17:07.4), Juan Cortes (26th, 18:14.7) and Gerardo Cleto Herrera (55th, 19:42.6).
East Union had three female competitors who ran the 2k JV race. All three turned in top-10 finishes: April Duarte (second, 7:51.4), Taylor Snaer (seventh, 8:38.5) and Gisel Velazquez (10th, 8:30.5).
Ripon’s varsity girls finished with 42 points to runner-up Turlock’s 54. Annie Wild led the way, placing seventh in 20:13.2. She was followed by freshman Malia Loccernini (11th, 20:55.0), Joselin Figueroa (28th, 22:45.1), Alyson Harvey (32nd, 23:06.4) and Leah VanDorst (41st, 24:26.0).
Omar Alsaidi (11th, 16:57.5) spearheaded Ripon’s varsity boys, who included Valente Hernandez (22nd, 17:53.9), Judah Mast (32nd, 18:28.8), Tristan Anderson (37th, 18:42.2) and Holden Jackson (52nd, 19:32.3).
Ripon also fielded a JV boys contingent that placed fifth. Ivan Serrano (7:23.7), Ivan Gladnikov (7:31.2) and James Wilkins (7:36.3) took 13th, 14th and 17th, respectively.
Ripon Christian’s JV girls finished third behind the efforts of Addison De Jong (13th, 9:07.9) and Tony Vasquez (14th, 9:12.8).