STOCKTON – Sierra was seventh in the small-school girls division and the boys were ninth while the Ripon girls finished sixth Saturday in the Pacific Tigers High School Invitational at Elkhorn Golf and Country Club in Stockton.
Megan Oblin finished sixth (18 minutes, 35.6 seconds) on the 5,000-meter course in a field of 48 schools for the Timberwolves with teammate Jasmin Correa finishing 47th (20:40.4) and Laica Marte 48th (20:42.6).
“I was a little disappointed,” Oblin said. “I think I slowed down in the second mile.
“My time was good. It was close to a PR or maybe even a PR for a 5K. It was a fast race.”
Jesse Hurtado’s effort of 16:09.4 was good for seventh place and Sierra teammate Isaias Ghezae was 34th (16:50.1).
“Coming into the race I was kind of sore because we ran hard this week for practice,” Hurtado said. “We came out here expecting to go up against all the teams from our section and I wanted to come out here and run a good, hard race.
“I switched up my strategy a bit and went a little bit slower in the beginning and slowly picked it up as the race went on. I kept picking up guys and I ended up in seventh place which is an amazing race, better than I could have asked for. This was by far a PR for me.”
Timberwolves coach Mike Rosendin was pleased on how Saturday will help his team prepare for the rest of the season. “We are really happy with the way Meghan and Jesse both competed,” Rosendin said. “They are inching up closer to the top runners in the section who they are going to face individually down the road. The point today was to make some progress toward that.
“There were top runners here from the Bay Area. There were 40-plus high schools in each race so it was definitely a good taste of competition and gets us ready for the important races to come.”
Ripon’s Kayla Jacklich led a cluster of three Indians, finishing 28th (20:13.5) ahead of teammates Laila Irigoyen (29th, 20:18.4) and Sandra Castillo (30th, 20:19.6).
“I didn’t sleep well last night,” Jacklich said. “I get really nervous about the races and last night I was doing stats for the football team.
“We have a really young team this year – as a senior I am one of the oldest girls – and our second (Irigoyen) and third (Castillo) runners this year are a freshman and a sophomore and they were right behind me. We are trying to go to state as a team so I am looking forward to us getting faster and better and building as a team.”
The Manteca girls all saw an improvement in their times.
“Every single one of our varsity girls improved their time by at least a minute,” Buffaloes coach Jessica Reeder said.
Manteca’s Mia Watson was 53rd and teammate Brianna Rodriguez was 55th (20:58.6).
“I felt pretty good in the beginning,” Rodriguez said. “It was a pretty flat course and overall it was pretty easy, but it just felt really long.”
Weston Ranch’s Jeremiah Robancho was 26th (16:43.5) and Brian Arevalo finished 40th (16:54.2) while girls teammate Jasmine Basco was 45th (20:38.2).
In the junior varsity 2 mile the Sierra boys were second and the girls were third. The Timberwolves boys were led by Cooper Sellers (third, 10:50.4), Axel Rios (sixth, 11:05.07), Christian Avina (seventh, 11:10.4), Irving Figuero (ninth, 11:14.8), Keegan Thomas (15th, 11:20.8), Jason Aucello (25th, 11:39.9) and Moises Vazquez (26th, 11:41.1). 
Jenelle Rodriguez was 18th (14:16.8) for the Sierra girls. Monique Ochoa was 19th (14:24.2) followed by Jeida Lavender (21st, 14:29.6), Cielo Angulo (25th, 14:38.2) and Celeste Angulo (31st, 14:46.2).
Manteca’s Nicole Leon-Loya was 20th (14:25.6) and Francisco Rosas was 39th (11:58.4), Ripon Christian’s  Meghan Johnson was 24th (14:38.0), Weston Ranch’s Adam Daniels was 43rd (12:01.0), Ripon’s Kayla Hutto was 49th (15:54.8) and boys teammate Edwin Plata was 50th (12:15.7).
 In the frosh/soph 2 mile competition, the Indians’ Abrahim Alsaida was seventh (10:50.7) in the boys division with teammates Brock Sadler finishing 44th (11:43.5) and Aaron McDonough 49th (11:48.3).  Ripon’s Jolie Delisle was 38th (14:32.0) and teammate Olivia Morris was 46th (14:45.3) in the girls division.