The St. Francis Cross Country team had a successful outing in the Woodbridge Invitational hosted this year at Great Park in Irvine.  The JV team raced on Thursday evening and had breakout performances from Freshmen Noah Martinez and Stephen Fredricks, who placed 3rd and 11th respectively in their Freshmen Boys White Division race.

On Friday the Varsity Team competed in the Rated Division Race, which hosted 40 teams from as far as Texas and Utah.  Those invited teams were composed of ranked teams from all 5 Divisions.  St. Francis was led by Senior standout, Hayden Owen, who clocked a 14:42.5 on the 3 mile course.  According to available records, that is the fastest 3-mile time a St. Francis athlete has run in the school’s history. The team had three additional athletes who ran under 16:00 minutes: Luke Metcalf (11) at 15:19.9, Sam Franco (11) at 15:17.0, and Aidan Guzman (10) at 15:43.7.

The team placed 7th out of 40 teams in a stacked field, only narrowly losing to one other Division 4 team, St. John Bosco, who is currently ranked 1st in the CIF SS Division 4.  As of 9/14, St. Francis is currently ranked 3rd in CIF SS Division 4, and 4th in the State in Division 4. 

The Golden Knights return to action at Pierce College today at the Mission League Cluster Meet #1.