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Two Sierra runners qualify for state cross country meet
Christian Gonzalez will make his third appearance at Woodward Park
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Christian Gonzalez is qualified for the CIF State Championships for a third time, and he’ll be joined by Sierra teammate Anna Dittman.

Both earned their spots this past Saturday at the Sac-Joaquin Section Championships at Willow Hills Reservoir Community Park in Folsom.

The top three teams and a maximum of five individuals who place top 14 qualify for the state meet in Divisions I-III. Two teams and five top-12 individuals in Divisions IV-V move on. Additionally, awards from the section final go to the top three teams in each division as well as top 10 finishers.

Sierra’s varsity boys and girls teams both placed 10th in Division III.

Gonzalez placed sixth with a time of 16 minutes, 12.7 seconds. Lathrop senior Riley Gier finished 30th in 17:39.8.

Others scoring for Sierra behind Gonzalez: Max Perez (40th overall, 17:53.4), Olivier Roman (61st, 18:44.9), Mateo Cervantez (62nd, 18:45.3) and Caleb Narayan (66th, 19:00.5).

Dittman, a sophomore, paced the Sierra girls with her eighth-place finish in 19:13.3. Teammate Monse Saavedra followed in 33rd place in 21:26.7, and while Abigail Fraser was 45th in 22:05.6. Iris Rodriguez (66th, 24:02.5) and Naomi Ross (67th, 24:22.8) rounded out scoring for the Timberwolves.

Lathrop sent three individual varsity girls qualifiers to the section final for Division III: sophomore Morgan Emery (46th, 22:17.8), Jacquelyn Pena Santillan (49th, 23:35.2) and Mackenzie Collins (55th, 22:50.4).

Junior Alysia Sinclair also ran the Division III race and is the first East Union varsity girls runner to appear at the section final since 2021. She took 51st in 22:40.0.

Ripon had two varsity qualifiers for Division IV. Sophomore Sophia Jung took 26th in the girls race, clocking in at 21:46.8. Moses Gomez represented the Indians in the boys competition, taking 58th in 19:11.1.

Ripon Christian’s varsity girls came up one spot shy of qualifying as a team, ending up third in Division V. The Knights were spearheaded by freshmen Elizabeth Rich (21st, 23:20.1) and Kaylee Baker (29th, 23:12.7). They were backed by Natalie Beenes (30th, 24:32.7), Tessa Schoolland (36th, 24:58.6) and Charlotte Graef (38th, 25:17.9).

Ripon Christian’s Matijs Zylstra (26th, 18:55.8) and Carter Van Groningen (51st, 20:01.1) ran the Division V boys race.

Two runners highlighted area schools in the lower levels.

Earning top-eight individual awards were East Union’s Elijah Galvan (second, 12:15.5) and Sierra’s Collin Curzon (sixth, 13:06.5) in Division III freshman boys.

The CIF State Championships is on Saturday, Nov. 29 at Woodward Park in Fresno.