Pirates Pedal to NorCal Mountain Bike Title for 4th Year

The came through on Sunday at Safford Park, winning its in Novato. They did it with strong showing in all categories to take the match and end up first in their division, again.

With 3959 final team points, as reported on the NorCal Mountain Bike website,  the Pirates took the match at Stafford Lake County Park from Salinas High School, with 3882. Redwood High of Larkspur came in third with 3870. San Rafael High, another perennial challenger in the annual NorCal division, came in fourth with 3604.

The year's final Division 1 Standings closely parallel Sunday's results, with Sir Francis Drake High School (19224 cumulative points) opening up a 101 point lead over second place Redwood High School (19123). Salinas High finished third (19061) and San Rafael High School was in fourth place (18397).

"This is our fourth NorCal title and we hope to make that a state title as well in the next two weeks," Coal Paul Chourre was quoted as saying in the Marin IJ. "The team had a stellar day."

Sir Francis Drake senior Mackinzie Stanley won the Varsity Girls race with a race time of 1:37:37, posting lap times of 25 minutes 5 seconds, 24:48, 23:43 and 24:01.

Top local in the boys varsity was fourth place for Lucas Newcomb of the Drake Pirates with a finishing time of 1:42:16 and five straight sub-21 minute  lap times (20:05, 20:24, 20:39, 20:41 and 20:27).

Chourre made special note of the girl riders on the school team, who had two top-10 finishers in the varsity division.

"Every girl on the team had a personal, equal or best (time)," Chourre was again quoted as saying. "They really stepped it up."

The California State Championships will be held May 20 in Los Olivos, Calif.