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Freshman, Julia Bounds, running in her first 5K course came from behind in the last 200 meters to win the race. Julia was in 3rd place with 400 meters to go when she made a move to pass Kyra Hunsberger from Reno and then continued to pursue Amanda Gehrich from Tesoro in the last 100 meters of the race. She was able to close the gap with 30 yards to go as Gehrich began to slow and then pass her for the victory. Julia's time of 18:14.3 was fast enough to break the St. Francis school record, held by Domatilla Torrens, set in 1992 at 18:49. Julia led her team to a ninth place finish out of 37 teams. Sophomores, Melissa Seaman (20:31), Gia Kim 20:51), and Barabar Zhao(21:17) along with Junior Hannah Kim(21:33), Caleece Nash(21:08) and Senior Vasilia Vezeris(22:07) all ran strong to help the team effort. The team will be preparing for their first WCAL race on Thursday at Baylands in Sunnyvale.
“She kind of knew what their ability was and I basically told her to hold back in the first mile and wait to see what she can do,” St. Francis girls cross country coach Roberta Chisam said. “About a mile and a half into it, she was in fourth place. And then coming back from the second mile, she was shoulder to shoulder with the third runner. And with 400 to go, there’s a little bit of uphill and I yelled at her to change her stride a little bit, and she broke the girl.