Jesuit Cross Country Running Back To Prominence

A quick flip through the California Interscholastic Federation record books will yield plenty mentions of ’s cross country program.

The Marauders were like the New York Yankees of CIF Division II as they started their domination in 1989 and continued through 2006, winning nine state titles in that time. That’s at least one per graduating class, for those counting at home.

In the five years since, though, Jesuit hasn’t quite yielded the same results.  Last season saw just one athlete compete individually in the state meet as the Marauders finished third in the Division I sectionals.

Jesuit’s absence from the state championship ranks isn’t from a lack of want. As assistant coach Dave Zielke puts it, other programs – externally and internally – have just finally caught up to Jesuit.

“So our numbers aren’t quite what they used to be as far as the size of the team goes,” said Zielke, who has coached with program founder and head coach Walt Lange for 20 years. “That has an impact as well sometimes. It’s less likely you’re going to get enough talent out on a small team."

“On the other hand, our section has gotten better," Zielke said. "A lot of those state championships and section titles that we won in the ‘90s, those teams were very good, better than we have now but what’s happened the last 10 years is cross country has really taken off, particularly in southern California, making it much harder for teams to compete at that level.”

While Lange still remains a fixture of the program and testament to what this program was, no one is reminiscing about the past. The future holds the same possibilities with a strong contingent of juniors and a few underclassmen that have the Marauders poised for big things.

“I think this is just important to develop for next year,” said sophomore runner Tristyn Martin. “This year, I think we can go to state and put up a decent showing if we all keep working but we’re not going to do anything like really, really important. I think next year, if we all keep training really hard and get some good feedback from this year, I think we can do really well.”

When Jesuit started the season Sept. 1 at the Del Oro Opening Night meet, the numbers didn’t convey much optimism as the team was beat thoroughly. It finished fifth behind Woodland, which is favored to win the section, Placer, El Dorado and host Del Oro. As a team, Jesuit finished more than five minutes behind Woodcreek (the favorite to win the division) and almost a full minute behind Del Oro.

But in just a month’s time Jesuit has made some incredible strides. The Marauders went back to the same Del Oro course on Oct. 1 where it finished second. What’s more is that the team improved from its time of 72 minutes, 24 seconds to reach a time of 69:18 and nine team members set personal records on the course.

“Cross country is really a mental sport, a lot of it,” said Chris Goode, a junior and the team’s leading runner. “So we just kind of changed our outlook. At first, going into it, we didn’t really have the most positive outlook on the season but as we started to have some better workouts we got some more confidence for ourselves and we started racing better too.”

Lange conceded that his team isn’t up to state championship caliber this season but the wise cornerstone of this program has made the younger members of the team see that next year and beyond is a strong possibility.

Aside from Goode and Martin, juniors Flavio Medrano, Eric Ragland, Andrew Brown and Sam Stoll are among a contingent of runners who are expected to lead the team onto bigger stages over the next year. Zielke said that because the top nine runners are so close all feel compelled to compete harder, which could set up an interesting group for the remainder of this season and beyond.

“State title is not a goal,” Zielke said. “For this year’s group, we’re not in the running for that. But I think the goal is to make state, to qualify for state…I think in the beginning these guys didn’t see themselves as much of anything and so I’ve seen the transformation the last two weeks where all of a sudden they’re starting to think of themselves as a team and starting to see that the goal of state is not a dream. It’s not a fantasy. It’s not something that is out of reach.”