Anthony Stone posts fastest time of the meet for Cubs, who lose season opener for first time since 2015; Siena Palicke runs No. 4 mark by a junior girl in meet history

By Landon Negri for DyeStat

Ayala High graduated one of the top girls distance runners in the country last year. If Saturday was any indication, the Bulldogs don’t plan on missing a beat in their quest to return to the California state meet in 2019.

Ayala, ranked No. 5 in CIF Southern Section Division 1, dominated the girls field Saturday to repeat at the season-opening Great Cow Run at Knabe Community Regional Park in Cerritos, winning the large schools division by 51 points and topping the overall combined results by 70 points over runner-up Los Alamitos and third-place Riverside Martin Luther King.

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Loyola senior Anthony Stone outraced Ayala’s duo of Yael Grimaldi and Ko Akabori to win the boys 3-mile race in 15 minutes, 2.8 seconds. Yorba Linda standout Siena Palicke took control early and won the girls race in 17:20.3, elevating to the fourth-fastest junior in meet history and the No. 13 all-time overall performer.

Loyola, however, did not win a fourth consecutive team title, as that honor went to King, which accumulated 88 points to Loyola’s 99 in the combined varsity results. The last time Loyola lost its season opener at Great Cow was 2015, taking second to California High of Whittier by an 86-96 margin.

Ayala’s girls were led by junior Shaina Berk, who placed fourth in 17:50.8. Saturday marked her team’s first race following the graduation of Mikaela Ramirez, the third-place finisher at the Division 1 state final last year.

Following Berk were junior Emma Bialy (eighth, 18:38.6), senior Megan Oh (ninth, 18:46.3), senior Brianna King (13th, 19:01.2) and junior Cadence Chang (16th, 19:06.6). Four of them ran on the Bulldogs’ seventh-place Division 1 state team a year ago.

“I think it’s really good for us to win without her,” Berk said of Ramirez, now a freshman at the University of Indiana, “because it kind of shows how we have depth in our team and it wasn’t always just the ‘Mikaela Ramirez Show.’ Yes, she was amazing, but we can still do it without her.”

Stone finished as overall runner-up last year to Ayala’s Andrew Martinez, but won in the medium-schools division. Saturday, he just went out and won the whole thing by making a move around the 2-mile mark and outrunning Grimaldi and Akabori to win.

That mark was seven seconds slower than last year, though Saturday brought surprisingly humid conditions – and hot temperatures later in the morning – to Cerritos.

“I think in the first mile, I felt OK,” Stone said. “Once I hit the 2-mile mark, I started to get a little tired.”

Rather than wilt, Stone – 24th in Division 2 at the state meet last year – surged ahead.

“I knew I had those two guys behind me; they were there the whole race,” he said. “I knew they were strong runners. So I thought maybe to myself that if I were to pick it up a little bit that I would be able to gap them just a tad and I was able to do that at the finish.”

Grimaldi was the runner-up in 15:07.9, while Akabori ran 15:15.0. Loyola junior Zachary Zambrano was fourth in 15:17.8, Santa Rosa senior Andrew Engel was fifth in 15:19.0 and Palisades junior Lucas Schriver was sixth in 15:20.4.

King won the team title despite its highest finisher being senior Mitchell Machuca, who placed seventh in 15:20.5, as the Wolves packed in all seven runners before Loyola's No. 4. Ayala's boys were third with 117 points.

“It was definitely a really good start to the season,” Machuca said. “We definitely didn’t go down in our mileage, definitely kept it high just to stay in our base phase.

“We just wanted to see where we were at (for) this point of the season, because we still have a whole season to go.”

Palicke placed 25th in Division 3 a year ago at the state meet, leading a young Yorba Linda team to Woodward Park in Fresno. She showed Saturday that her progression is continuing, as she took control of the girls race, finishing 16 seconds better than runner-up Kendall Saeger of Santa Margarita (17:36.7).

It was just the kind of performance Palicke felt like was needed in a season in which she has a goal of finishing in the top 15 at the state meet.

“It means a lot,” she said. “It’s a pretty good confidence booster to start the season off in this way.”

Saeger, who was four spots ahead of Palicke last November in the same division, did her best to keep pace but could not close the gap.

“Siena took the race out pretty quick, so I just tried to keep her in my sights,” Saeger said. “As the race went on, I just tried to make up some ground on her.”

Kennedy senior Sally Silengo outkicked Berk at the finish to place third in 17:50.6. Palisades senior Sarah Bentley was fifth in 18:05.8.

In the combined results, Ayala tallied 74, with Los Alamitos second at 144 and King third at 149 points. Yorba Linda wound up fourth with 188.

There was one other notable performance. Norte Vista’s Ernesto Ruiz ran the top time in the 10th-grade races and the No. 2 time of any sophomore overall in 15:25.5, the 11th-fastest mark across all grade levels.

Ruiz said he was hoping for 15:30, so it proved to be a memorable day.

“I was able to get it and beat it,” he said. “So I’m actually happy with that.”