Bell-Jeff Invite
Griffith Park
September 28th, 2024
The D1 City girls impressed big time at Bell-Jeff taking 8 of the top 10 places in the Varsity Large school race (see pictures in gallery below) while Palisades won the team title for the 2nd year in a row. The Pali boys team placed 2nd in the Large School race led by 3rd place finisher ZACHARY COHEN. BRIDGETT TRUJILLO (Miguel Contreras) won the Girls Varsity Small race and AMBER LOPEZ (Verdugo Hills) placed 2nd. Palisades boys went 1-3 in the Frosh/Soph Large School Race with MAKO HOLT winning and 2/3rds of the freshman triplet team, ETHAN and JUSTIN FUNK, taking 2nd and 3rd. Granada Hills freshman ELENA MEDRANO won the Girls Frosh/Soph All School race and Venice’s WHITNEY DERBY placed 2nd in the same race.
Most of the Granada Hills varsity teams ran up at Nike Portland this weekend, Venice’s varsity team opted for a long run at Griffith Park versus racing, Taft didn’t run Bell-Jeff, and some of ECR’s top runners were MIA. So no big updates to D1 rankings based on Bell-Jeff. .
The gallery below highlights some of City’s top City girl athletes that were unfortunately not given adequate coverage at Woodbridge last week.
City Takes 8 of Top 10 Places in Varsity Large School Race
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2nd Sammy Pacheco - Granada Hills 19:22.6
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3rd Zoey Morris - Palisades Charter 19:34.9
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4th Meztli Velazquez - Cleveland 19:39.8
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5th Lulu Mammen - Palisades Charter 19:40.6
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7th Ananya Balaraman - N. Hollywood 19:47.0
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8th Kelia Naranjo-Champion - Garfield 20:11.6
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9th Yesenia Valdez - Birmingham 20:45.9
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10th Gabriella Gilyard - Palisades Charter 20:47.9
BRIDGETTE TRUJILLO finishes a dominant performance in the Varsity Medium School Race to win in 20: 20.7, a 34 second PR over last year’s time at Bell-Jeff. Bridgette is the #3 returning D2 runner from last year’s City Championship.
Last year’s D3 City Champion AMBER LOPEZ placed 2nd in the Varsity Medium Race in 20:40.1. She’ll be looking to go sub-19 minutes at Pierce in November.
Palisades 2.0
Palisades Charter’s future has arrived. Sophomore MAKO HOLT (2089) and freshmen ETHAN FUNK (2085) and JUSTIN FUNK (2086) placed 1st, 2nd & 3rd in the Frosh/Soph Large Race. Their times ranked as the 7th, 9th & 10th best City times overall at Bell-Jeff. Two other freshmen, THEO MAYEDA and SEBASTIAN FUNK, competed in the Varsity race.
Sisters and Brothers
Sisters LULU and ELEANOR MAMMEN follow in the footsteps of their brother Axel (Palisades ‘24) . Lulu posted the 5th fastest time at Bell-Jeff and Elaanor was the 3rd best freshman on the day,.
Freshman OLIVIA CORRIGAN was the top Eagle Rock finisher at Bell-Jeff. Eleanor is sister to “Olympian” JAMES CORRIGAN and sister City Standouts CELESTE (ER ‘22) and ELIZABETH CORRIGAN (Crescenta Valley ‘24).
Note: Elizabeth ran at Eagle Rock for 3 years.
Here’s how City teams ranked based on performances for each team at Bell-Jeff . *Scoring is based on the top 7 performances for each team, using standard CIF scoring, compiled by division (all non-City teams have been excluded). Teams that did not have 5 performances at Bell-Jeff are N/A.
‘The Drive’
Is dedicated to LA City’s high school distance running community
The goal is to evangelize exceptional teams and athletes with high quality, curated content and editorial perspectives in an online periodic publication.
Each volume will include a ‘Special’ section, as well as Athletes of the Week/Month, ‘The Week in Pictures’ including a ‘Picture of the Week’, ‘The Numbers’, and ‘Heard on the Trail’.
ENJOY!