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Carrillo's 'other' team does pretty well at NCS, too DiRado's comeback helps Pumas to second cross country title in four years By RICH RUPPRECHT PRESS DEMOCRAT Published: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 Maria Carrillo defeated Campolindo for a North Coast Section championship last Saturday, not once, but twice. Yes, the Pumas volleyball team knocked off the Moraga school to earn its second straight NCS championship and advance to NorCals. It’s that other Carrillo championship team — the one that flies beneath the radar, maybe because it is so consistently good — that also handed Campolindo a loss, the cross country team. And that Pumas team also advanced to its eighth consecutive state appearance at Fresno’s Woodward Park on Saturday. There was a subplot to Carrillo’s championship run at Hayward High, involving the No. 5 runner, senior Sarah DiRado. The Pumas coaches had told runners before the race that in order to beat Campolindo, everyone had to get out fast, run hard and hold nothing back. DiRado got the message but had one little problem. She fell 200 meters into a race with 110 runners. Head coach Greg Fogg and DiRado’s dad Ruben, an assistant coach, were farther up the course and didn’t see Sarah fall. All they saw was one of their runners pulling up the rear. “I totally Supermanned it,” DiRado said of her fall. She landed on the palms of her hands. “We saw her and just yelled for her to get going,” Fogg said. “When I saw her, there were still 60 runners ahead of her.” DiRado, who Fogg said is the most excitable and enthusiastic of the Pumas runners, was determined to pass as many opponents as possible. She wound up 14th, meaning on a narrow trail course she passed nearly 90 other runners. “It was amazing,” Fogg said. It was the Carrillo girls’ second NCS title in four years, and they were second last year and in 2006. Fogg said the closeness of a cross country team can’t be overrated and credits four seniors — DiRado, Jordan Davis, Kelly O’Leary and Mikaela DeRousseau — with “galvanizing” the group. “They solidified the team and brought a lot of enthusiasm,” he said. Carrillo’s other runners are junior twins Lauren and Cara Curtin (Lauren finished fourth in the Div. III race), junior Margie Garza and sophomore Sarah Thompson. Carrillo is ranked fifth in a tough Div. III state field, but Fogg believes it could finish fourth and with a strong effort and some luck could reach the podium (top three). Last year, the Pumas finished fourth at state. Fogg, who took over the Carrillo program last year from Danny Aldridge, said high expectations sometimes obscures a team’s growth during a season. This team came within 14 seconds of the best cumulative time at the Spring Lake Course. It also pushed its streak to six consecutive years of winning all league meets, including league championships.
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