En route to a historic season, Corona Santiago’s girls cross country team won its first CIF Southern Section Division 1 title last year, edging out Trabuco Hills, 49-65. The Sharks hope their stay atop Division 1 is not a short one. Santiago enters this Saturday’s CIF-SS Finals at Mt. San Antonio College as the second-ranked team in Division 1 behind Trabuco Hills. Woodcrest Christian’s Eyan Turk and King’s Maximo Zavaleta lead the Jeff Swigart Boys Sweepstakes at the Inland Empire Challenge cross country meet at Cucamonga-Guasti Regional Park in Ontario on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (Photo by Milka Soko, Contributing Photographer) That’s been the ranking since Oct. 14, when Santiago and Trabuco Hills shared the top spot. Whether Santiago can repeat as Division 1 champion is one of the most intriguing Inland storylines for the cross country finals. And it should be interesting not just to see if Santiago can repeat, but it should be an extremely tight finish. One team will get the momentum entering next week’s CIF State Championships, as Santiago is the defending champion but is currently ranked No. 3 in the state behind Buchanan and Trabuco Hills. “I figure it’s going to be about four to five points (difference),” Santiago coach Rick Etheridge said. “It’s going to come down to our No. 3, No. 4, and No. 5 girls. I think it’s going to be a close battle.” Trying to use previous results to predict is not easy. The Mt. SAC Invitational was on the same course a month ago, but Trabuco Hills ran only one runner in the Division 1&2 team sweepstakes, and Santiago didn’t have its full lineup including defending CIF-SS champion senior Rylee Blade. At CIF-SS Prelims last week, each team won their heat, with Trabuco Hills posting a team time more than two minutes faster than Santiago. But while Trabuco Hills basically ran its regular lineup, Santiago did not. “We were at about 75 to 80 percent last week,” Etheridge said. “Our team is deep and I was able to sit four (of the top seven).” The teams are built similarly. They both have a very strong top two: Santiago with Blade and junior Braelyn Combe and Trabuco Hills with senior Holly Barker and junior Millie Bayles. It wouldn’t be a surprise if those four were the top four finishers in the Division 1 race. Blade and Combe ran last week, but that wasn’t the original plan. Etheridge had originally wanted to have Blade, but not Combe run at prelims. That’s because Combe previously ran the same course at the Mt. SAC Invitational (which Blade did not run) and Etheridge doesn’t want his runners to run the grueling course too many times. But Combe missed the rescheduled Big VIII League Finals Nov. 8 because of a previously scheduled recruiting trip so Etheridge had her run CIF Prelims. “All I can do is prepare the team to the best of my ability,” Etheridge said. “I’m very confident in what we’re capable of.” Santiago’s quest for a repeat CIF title is just one of the Inland storylines to watch for. Here are some others: REPEAT INDIVIDUAL WINNERS While the Division 1 girls team title could go either way, the two returning senior Inland CIF-SS champions are big favorites to win again: Santiago’s Blade and Woodcrest Christian’s Eyan Turk. Blade won the Division 1 title by 33.8 seconds last year over Barker, and Turk won his second straight Division 5 title by a margin of 29.3 seconds a year ago. Etheridge wants people to pay attention to what Blade has done this season already. “What Rylee has done this season is unmatched by any girl in the state (history),” he said. “She’s broken 16 minutes four times. The greats of the greats might’ve broken 16 maybe once or maybe twice. It is historical.” Woodcrest Christian coach Eric Reynolds says don’t expect Turk to coast to a title. “I genuinely think that if he runs his race, no one can beat him,” Reynolds said. “And mentally, he’s a two-time defending champion. He’s been through some fights.” Reynolds also said Turk, who recently signed with Kentucky, is looking to post the best overall time Saturday. Last year, he had the second-best time of any underclassman, trailing only Dana Hills’ Evan Noonan, who won the Division 3 race. “I know he wants to be faster than Evan Noonan,” Reynolds said. “He’s not going to leave anything in the tank. He’s a competitor. He knows all the guys that have the fastest times.” FOUR-TIME STATE QUALIFIERS? Santiago and Blade are not the only Inland stories in the girls Division 1 race. Vista Murrieta’s Erika Kirk and Rancho Cucamonga’s Nicole Alfred are among the seniors looking to advance to state for the fourth straight year in Division 1. Both have had the experience of advancing to state as the final individual qualifier or needing their team to advance them. Kirk’s team qualified for state in 2023 (fourth) and 2021 (third), as the top seven teams in each division advance. She finished 10th overall last year, and 43rd as a freshman, and would not have advanced to state had her team not qualified. As a sophomore, her team barely missed getting to state finishing eighth. But Kirk’s ninth-place finish was enough for her to advance. Alfred is the opposite, getting help from her team her sophomore year, but getting there by herself as a freshman and a senior. Her best team was her sophomore year, when the Cougars finished third and she was 12th and would not have qualified as an individual. As a freshman, her team was 13th and she finished 13th as the last individual qualifier. Last year, her team did not make it to finals but she was eighth and was the last runner to advance as an individual. This year, they might both have to advance as individuals. Alfred definitely will have to, since her team did not make it to finals, while Kirk’s team made it to finals, but the Broncos are ranked ninth. AYALA IS OUT Ayala was looking to have both its boys and girls teams advance to CIF State Finals, but now neither will be competing at CIF-SS Finals. Both teams were withdrawn from CIF-SS Finals by the school, and the CIF-SS office supported the decision, CIF-SS Assistant Commissioner Thom Simmons confirmed. Coach Tony DiMarco said that the reason for the withdrawal was that the school incorrectly reported its CBED attendance numbers and that the teams should have been competing in Division 1, and not Division 2. CIF cross country divisions are enrollment-based. The boys were ranked No. 1 in Division 2 (one spot ahead of Palomares League rival Glendora), were seeking the team’s first CIF-SS title since 1992 and were expected to make the state finals for the fourth straight year. The girls were ranked No. 7 in Division 2 and looking to qualify for the state finals for the second straight year.