Winning return for Gabrielle in Cross Country

Gabrielle Race made a winning return in the third leg of the All Schools Cross Country Race held last Saturday at the Commonwealth Ports Authority Airport Field.

Christian Villacrucis, left, runs ahead of David Roberto in the boys U15 division in last Saturday’s third leg of the All Schools Cross Country race at the Airport Field. (Jon Perez)

Race, who failed to join the first two legs of the series, led from the start to rule the girls U18 division against a host of runners from Agape Christian School.

She completed the 3.2-mile (5.1 kilometers) course in a blistering pace of 24:11, which was almost 10 minutes ahead of closest pursuer Candy Tang of ACS that submitted 33:17, while teammate Elizabeth Chen came in third with a time of 35:19.

Race’s time was also better compared to first and second leg winner Yang Sheng Ai, which timed 30:36 and 28:24 in the first two races last month.

The Marianas High School multisport athlete shaved more than six minutes off her last year’s time, 30:24, where she became the overall winner in the finals held at the American Memorial Park.

Despite failing to join the first two legs, Race qualified for the Nov. 21 finals. Northern Marianas Athletics would announce the venue of the finals at a latter date.

Race, who would be graduating next year, wasn’t informed that the first leg was moved on Oct. 24, while she failed to join the next one on Oct. 31 since she had a football game in the women’s league.

Mark Lukun of ACS topped the boys U18 division with 25:08, while Mark De La Torre of MHS was second at 34:36.

Conatsu Kaga claimed her second straight girls U13 class as she crossed the finish line in 13:58, which was 27 seconds slower from her winning time of 13:31 in Leg 2 last Oct. 31.

Therize Miller, the opening leg winner (17:06), settled for second place with 17:43 beating Ruschell Villano, who completed the sweep for home school bets, by a hairline (17:44).

Whispering Palms School’s Blake Mister equaled Kaga’s feat in the boys’ side finishing the two-lap course (2.1 miles or 3.3k) for middle school runners in 15:30. John Saluta (17:38) and ACS’ Bobby Pang (18:32) came in second and third, respectively.

Esther Li prevented a shutout for the ACS bets after topping the girls U15 division in 22:08 relegating Saipan Community School’s Sunny Woo and Saipan Southern High School’s Rae Min to second and third places with times of 22:44 and 25:55, respectively.

Mt. Carmel School’s Christian Villacrucis continued with his dominant run in the boys U15 class with the fastest overall time of 13:12. His times in the first and second legs were 9:00 and 12:56.

MHS’ David Roberto was eight seconds behind Villacrusis with 13:30, while fellow Dolphin Neil Skerei, a member of the CNMI Junior All-Star team in this year’s Asia Pacific regional tournament, came in third (13:50).

The final leg is on Nov. 14 still at the Airport Field with 3:15pm as registration and 4pm start. The order of the race will be middle school (2.1 miles or 3.3K) and high school (3.2 miles or 5.1K) first followed by the elementary runners (1 mile or 1.6K).