|
WelcomeContact Information for De Anza XC Coach Nick Mattis Head Coach Nick Mattis Phone: 408.864.5731 Address:
Castro wins first State Title in School HistoryThe 2012 season ended with a bang last Saturday in Fresno. Sophomore Standout Katie Castro pulled away shortly before the two mile marker in the State Finals and then cruised to a 29 second victory with a time of 17:45. Castro's performance helped the women's team of: Castro, Oddessy Tapia, Dominique Guinnane, Alexa Torres, Yaritza Barajas, Kiera Fincannon and Kendra Higgins, to a 4th place team finish. The 4th place finish is the second highest in school history after the 1977 state championship team. Castro was also named Female October Student-Athlete of the Month for all sports for the state of California Community Colleges. The men's team finished overall in 20th place at the state finals, which is the highest finish for a men's team in over 30 years. Sophomore Ryan Miranda led the team of Andrew Kuo, Alex Stanford, Benny Reeves, Ricardo Flores, Atif Velagic and Cristhian Montenegro. Northern California ChampionshipsThe Men's and Women's Cross Country Teams qualified for the sixth straight year. The women qualified for the state championships in dominating fashion as they easily won their second straight Northern California Championship. The team was led by super sophomore Katie Castro who won the race by 58 seconds over second place with the 11th fastest time in Crystal Springs Racecourse history by a community college woman, and the fastest time since 1990. Castro finished the race in her own personal race record with a time of 17:33 for the hilly 2.95 mile course. Behind her was Oddessy Tapia finishing in fourth place overall to join Castro on the All-Northern California First Team. Tapia also had a lifetime PR finishing in 18:38. Dominique Guinnane's 13th place finish was good enough to land her on the Second Team All-Northern California list, finishing just ahead of Kiera Fincannon who just missed the All-Northern California Team by one place finishing in 15th place. Yaritza Barajas rounded out the top 5 for the Dons with a 23rd place finish. Good enough for the Dons to easily outdistance second place American River College by a score of 49 to 73. Kendra Higgins place in 26th place and Martha Gatkuoch finished in 33rd place as the other two runners in the 84 competitors completing the race. Gatkuoch was a last minute replacement for Alexa Torres who normally runs third for the Dons, as Torres elected to rest a minor injury for the state championships. The Men didn't have it quite as easy as the women, finishing in 7th place as a team, however their finish was good enough to move them into the state champoinships for a 6th straight year. Ryan Miranda ran a fantastic race finishing in 20th place out of the 100 runners completing the race to pace the Dons. Andrew Kuo did not have one of his better races of the season but still managed a 35th place finish. Two more freshman runners Alex Stanford and Atif Velagic came in 3rd and 4th for the Dons finishing in 53rd and 54th respectively on the 4.19 mile course. Benny Reeves and Ricardo Flores were the next two across the line for the Dons in 56th and 58th places. Erick Almaguer who has been battling a hip injury all season ran one final race in his career but only finished in 87th place. Almaguer's injury will keep him out of the state championships in order to heal up for the future. The State Championships will be held at Woodward Park in Fresno on November 17th with the first race beginning at 10:00 AM. Coast Conference ChampionshipsFor the second straight year and the fourth time in five years the De Anza Women's Team won the Coast Conference Cross Country Championships. The De Anza women beat Hartnell College 24-37 in the team race. The De Anza women had a school record 8 runners named to the All-Conference Team, led by super sophomore Katie Castro, who won her 6th straight meet to win the Individual Conference Championship. Odessy Tapia 4th, Alexa Torres 6th and Dominique Guinnane 7th also joined Castro on the First Team All-Conference Team. Freshman Kiera Fincannon finished 9th overall to finish the team scoring for the Dons to earn Second Team All-Conference honors. Joining Fincannon on the Second Team All-Conference list was Kendra Higgins 10th, Yaritza Barajas 11th and Aisnlee Hampel 13th place. For the men, Andrew Kuo finished in 5th place overall to lead De Anza to a 3rd place finish behind team champion Hartnell and runner-up Los Positas. Kuo's finish put him on the First Team All-Conference list. Ryan Miranda finished in 13th place to earn a place on the Second Team All-Conference list. Alex Stanford 22nd, Benny Reeves 26th and Atif Velagic 28th rounded out the scoring team for the Dons. Both teams will be in action again at Crysal Springs race course for the second straight race at the Northern California Championship on November 2nd, looking to earn a trip to the State Championships. Pat Ryan Invitational
Toro Park InvitationalEven when the Dons aren't at full strength they are pretty good. With Alexa Torres going down in the middle of the race after fighting off illness and trying to still run and a couple other Dons doing workouts during the race to protect injuries. The Dons still ended up easily winning the Toro Park Invitational in Salinas, CA on the women's side of things. The team was led by a powerful one-two punch. Katie Castro and Oddessy Tapia made up for the team being a little weaker this week by finishing 1-2 and becoming just the 4th and 5th community college women in course history to run under 19 minutes. Castro's 18:25 was the 3rd fastest time in course history and Tapia's 18:54 was the fifth fastest time. Dominique Guinnane was next across the line in sixth place and also made the all-time list at Toro Park. Kiera Fincannon stepped up for the Dons to finish fourth for the team and 8th overall in her best race of her college career and first top ten finish of the season. Sophomore Kendra Higgens who has been battling a muscle injury most of the season toughed out an 11th place finish overall and had her best race of the season, to easily secure the team win for the Dons. Yaritza Barajas who ran a conservative race protecting a foot injury finished sixth for the Dons and Martha Gatkuoch.edged out teammates Ainslee Hampel and Melissa Chaidez for the seventh spot. For the men, Andrew Kuo finished in seventh overall out of the 89 runners. The Dons, ended up in fourth as a team even though they were missing Erick Almaguer and David Brody, two guys who probably would normally be in their top 3 runners on the team. The pack running of the Dons came across next for the Dons with Alex Stanford finishing 27th overall and followed closely by Ricardo Flores, Cristhian Montenegro, Ryan Miranda, Jonthan Hernandez and Benny Reeves as they came across the line in 30th, 31st, 33rd, 35th and 36th respectively. The Dons will travel to Santa Rosa next Friday for their final regular season meet of the year. Races begin at 2:30. NorCal Preview MeetThe Lady Dons flexed their muscle like a team may never have done before in school history at the NorCal preview meet. The Dons had some record setting performances at the meet. The women scored only 32 points as a team, easily beating out Hartnell College, who is ranked second in Northern California and in the Top 10 in the state as they scored 68 for the meet. Katie Castro won her third straight meet with a dominate performance as she left the field after the mile mark in the race. Castro became the first woman in school history to break the 18:00 barrier in school history at Crystal Springs with her time of 17:59, winning by 40 seconds. Oddessy Tapia ran the best race of her life as she broke the 19:00 minute barrier for the first time in her life with a time of 18:54 and finishing 3rd place overall. Alexa Torres came in 5th place overall for the Dons and also snuck under the 19 minute barrier with a time of 18:59. Dominique Guinnane was next in for the Dons in 12th place overall as she ran a 19:36. Yaritza Barajas was the fifth runner across the line for the Dons with a time of 19:59 to complete the Dons domination of the field. Kiera Fincannon was just over the 20:00 minute barrier with a lifetime best of 20:14. Martha Gotkuoch rounded out the top 7. When all the times came in 9 out of the 12 runners in the race for the Dons ran lifetime best times. For the men, they had the best race of their season as they finished in 6th place overall. Andrew Kuo led the Dons for the 2nd race in a row finishing in 22nd place out of the 162 runners in the race. A pack of sophomores were next in for the Dons led by Ryan Miranda in 44th and David Brody in 45th place running the best race of his college career. Benny Reeves was 56th place for the Dons. Freshman Alex Stanford was close behind Reeves in 61st place. Sophomores Cristhian Montenegro and Ricardo Flores rounded out the top 7 for the Dons. The Dons will run at Toro Park in Salinas next Friday in the Toro Park Invitational. Lou Vasquez InvitationalThe women's team had another tough challenge at Golden Gate Park as number 4 ranked Cerritos College came up north to take on the northern schools at the Lou Vasquez Invitational. The slightly favored southerners lived up to their rankings out dueling the Dons by 23 seconds in the team standings. This meet was scored differently than a traditional cross country meet as the top five runners from every team had their times added together to get a team time. The lowest team time won. De Anza and Cerritos both had fantastic team times that easily would have won almost any year either team would have been champion. The team was led by Katie Castro for the second week in a row. Castro won the event by sixteen seconds with a time of 18:28. The rest of the top five for the Dons was as usual with Alexa Torres, who finished 5th overall. Oddessy Tapia was next finishing in 12th place. Dominique Guinnane who is almost back to full strength after an injury a couple weeks ago finished fourth for the Dons and Yaritza Barajas rounded out the top 5 finishing in 23rd place. 8 of the ladies 12 runners ran lifetime best times for a 5K cross country course. For the men, it was very tough field of competition finishing 9th place as a team yet running faster than the previous year as a team when they finished 6th. Freshman Andrew Kuo led the mens team with a 32nd place finish. The Dons will next compete at Crystal Springs race course in the NorCal preview meet. Mills InvitationalThe Dons traveled a little closer to home for the first time this season, but were presented with a couple new challenges for this race. The Dons for the first time this year stepped up to the distance 4-year schools compete at and mostly competed against all 4-year schools. The women again shined in their new challenge. Running in a 6k event rather than their usual 5k and on a slow challenging course finished in a three-way scoring tie for second with NCAA Division II CSU Monterrey Bay and NCAA Division I University of Pacific, and 12 points behind Division II CSU East Bay, who won the meet. There was 10 teams in this meet and De Anza was the only community college in the women's race with a complete team. The team was once again led by sophomore Katie Castro, who destroyed the field in the second loop of the race. At two miles, Katie was in a group of 5 runners but 1.8 miles later when the race was finished she was all by herself beating a Division I runner from Pacific by 30 seconds. Alexa Torres ended up in 6th place overall and the 5th fastest college runner in the race to be second for the Dons. Oddessy Tapia was next across for the Dons in 10th place and 8th among collegiate runners. Dominique Guinnane was running with a bit of an ankle injury that occured during practice the previous week and ran a bit more conservative race to make sure she would remain healthy for the rest of the season, still managed to maintain her spot as the 4th runner on the Dons this season finishing 27th place overall. If Guinnane had been allowed to run her normal race strategy the Dons might have won the whole team event. Yaritza Barajas continued her fine freshman season maintaining her fifth spot on the team finishing just 4 spots behind Guinnane of the 108 runners who finished the race. Martha Gatkuoch finished in 38th as the sixth runner and Kiera Fincannon rounded out the top 7 for the Dons in 39th place. The other Dons competing finished as follows: Kendra Higgins 42nd, Ainslee Hampel 47th, Lauren Nuttall 59th, Daniela Lomeli 73rd, Kelly Gomez 102nd. Melissa Chaidez was having a strong race when she had to drop out of the race spraining her ankle at about the 2 and quarter mile mark of the race turning a corner on some loose gravel. For the men, they finished in 6th place out of the 9 teams in the race. They were the second place community college team in the standings behind conference foe Las Positas. William Jessup University out of Sacramento a NAIA team was the meet champion. Sophomore Erick Almaguer enjoyed the longer distance as the guys ran a 5 mile race this week rather than their usual 4 mile races, as he led the Dons with and 18th place finish and 16th overall out of college runners to be the first Don across the finish line. Andrew Kuo was next across the line two spots behind Almaguer. Cristhian Montengro continues to improve week to week as he finished in 30th place overall and 26th among collegiate runners out of the 86 runners who finished the course. Next across the line was the pack of Dons that seems to be happening each week. Benny Reeves finished in 38th, Ricardo Flores in 39th, Ryan Miranda in 42nd, David Brody in 43rd finished out the top 7. The rest of the Dons competing Alex Stanford 45th, Jonathan Hernandez 46th were close behind the top 7. Matt Alexander in 53rd, Sai Chollate in 56th, Atif Velagic in 62nd, Steven Chew in 65th, and Raul Lopez in 74th were the rest of the competitors for the Dons. The Dons will have a short rest week as they run Thursday in Golden Gate Park at 3:30 at the Lou Vasquez Invitational against a large field of community colleges from all over. Fresno InvitationalThe second meet of the season so much better times on a more traditional cross country course. Fresno, which will once again be the host site for the State Championships and the Dons got to preview the course and some of its possible competition. For the women, it was again a big day for the Dons. Katie Castro went out a bit fast in the first mile, but only one runner out of the 155 in the race could catch her. Castro ended up in second place for the women to lead the team to a fourth place finish as a team. The women's team finished in fourth, but were only 28 points out of first as the top teams were all bunched together. De Anza was the first team from the NorCal section across the line beating out rival Hartnell by 70 points who finished in fifth overall in the meet. Along with Castro, two other ladies earned medals by finishing in the top 14 individuals. Sophomores, Alexandra Torres and Oddessy Tapia finished in 12th and 14th respectively. Dominique Guinnane was fourth for the Dons just missing the medals finishing in 18th place. Freshman Yaritza Barajas was again the fifth Don across the line to round out the scoring team in 40th place. For the men, it was a bit more of struggle as they finished in 12th place in the competition out of the 22 teams entered. Andrew Kuo was again the top finisher for the Dons with a 35th place finish out of the 214 runners. Erick Almaguer was next across the line in 56th place for the Dons rebounding from a disappointing season opener. Three sophomores Cristhian Montenegro, Ryan Miranda and Benny Reeves rounded out the top five for the Dons finishing pretty close together and all running personal bests on the course finishing in 84th, 92nd and 101st places. The official results of all our meets can me scene by clicking on the meets on our schedule page. The Dons will run next Saturday at Mills College against mostly a field of four-year schools on a longer course. The women's race will begin at 10 AM. 2012 Season Opens at Ventura InvitationalThe 2012 season kicked off last Friday with the Ventura Invitational in Ventura, CA. De Anza was the only team from Northern California at the meet and represented themselves well on the extremely difficult course. The women started off their season in a way they haven't done in many years. The started the season with a win. The women beat two teams ranked in the top ten in the state to capture the team title by 4 points over 5th ranked Antelope Valley College with a score of 46 to 50. Mt. Sac ranked third in the state but missing a few runners from their lineup finished in third with 65 in the 11 team field. The Dons came into the season with a strong returning group of sophomores, but were led sophomore transfer Katie Castro who transfered to De Anza after a strong freshman year the University of Pacific. Castro won the overall individual title in her first outing as a Don. She was followed closely by a strong trio of those returning sophomores. Alexa Torres finished 7th, Dominique Guinnane finished 8th and Oddessy Tapia came in 11th place for the Dons. Freshman newcomer Yaritza Barajas was the 5th member of the team to cross the line and complete the victory for the Dons, as she finished in 19th place out of the 93 runners who completed the course. Another freshman Kiera Fincannon and sophomore Martha Gatkuoch also helped in the win as both finished ahead of Antelope Valley's number 5 runner to seal the victory. For the men, freshman Andrew Kuo made his debut as a Don in a big way finishing in 4th place overall in the 85 runner field. Sophomores Benny Reeves, Ryan Miranda, Cristhian Montenegro and Ricky Flores were the rest of the top five for the Dons, finishing in 26th, 27th, 33rd and 36th place respectively. Another freshman Alex Stanford came in sixth for the Dons in 43rd place, followed closely by Erick Almaguer who eased up with a minor injury during the race but still managed to finish in 45th place. The men finished in 4th place overall behind state ranked El Camino College who won the meet and state ranked Mt. Sac in second. They missed a plaque for third place by 3 points getting nosed out by Santa Monica College in the 10 team field. The men and women will be back in action on Saturday, Sept. 8th at Woodward Park in Fresno for the state preview meet. Women will start at 8:30 AM and the men will run at 9:15. 2011 Season Recap
Women
Men
2010 Season Recap
Women
Men
2009 Season Recap
Women's Highlights
Men's Highlights
2008 season team highlights2008 Women's Cross Country Team 2008 Coast Conference Champions 
Back Row (L to R): Coach Nick Mattis, Felicia Costa, Maura Villanueva, Devin Powell, Yasamin Yazdi, Kate Braham, Stephanie Nguyen, Coach JJ Noble Front Row (L to R): Jessica Paranthaman, Kim Kilgroe, Lauren Rosiles, Kirsti Whitmyre, Vanessa James, Kim Chew Women
Men
De Anza Dons 2008 Men's Cross Country Team De Anza's 2008 Men's Cross Country Team was named to the All-State Academic Teams recently recognized for their outstanding performance in the classroom and success in competition. The team was one of three teams to be named an All-State Academic team from De Anza for the 2008-2009 seasons. 2007 season team highlights
Individually Cynthia Chaidez received All-State Honors with her 12th place finish at the State Championships. Other top performances were Angie Sandoval, Lauren Rosiles and Chaidez receiving All-Conference Awards for the Women. For the Men, Trevor Addison was named to the All-Conference Team |
||||
|
|
