No Second Thoughts, Stein Is First

WOODLAND HILLS — Freshman Natalie Stein of North Hollywood High lived with second place for a week, while the Birmingham girls lived with third for a year.

Stein, who won five consecutive races before finishing second to sophomore Valerie Flores of San Pedro in the City Section girls’ preliminaries last week, turned the tables Saturday to win the City championship at Pierce College.

“She had a good week last week and I didn’t,” said Stein, who finished in 18 minutes 12 seconds and led all the way on the three-mile course. “This week, I had a good week and she didn’t.”

Stein said she wasn’t concerned with her time and concentrated solely on winning, which gave her a berth in the state championships next Saturday at Woodward Park in Fresno.

Flores was second in 18:32.

Wendy Chan of Taft finished fourth in 18:47 and Jamie Newman of El Camino Real ran sixth in 18:51, both earning trips to Fresno.

Birmingham’s girls erased the sting of last year’s third-place finish for Coach Scott King by winning their second title in three years.

Erika Dolezal finished seventh in 18:52, Dina Melendez was ninth in 18:57 and Tiffany Burgess ran 10th in 19:08 for the Braves. Melanie Sims finished 20th in 20:10 and Melissa Astete was 22nd in 20:14 to give Birmingham 50 points. Bell was second with 97 points, also earning a spot in the state meet, and Taft was third at 123.

King said Dolezal and Melendez have “really grown up in the past two weeks,” since Burgess--1996 City champion--sprained her right ankle Halloween night in a freak incident at a haunted house.

“They’ve really learned to step up,” King said. “They’ve always had Tiffany to depend on. Even in practice they wouldn’t blow past her. It’s just the pecking order of the team. I was really proud of them.”

Belmont continued its dominance of the boys’ championship by taking five of the top eight places to win its 13th title in 16 years.

The Sentinels compiled a perfect score of 15, with Garfield scoring 80 for second place. Birmingham was third at 95 and Monroe finished fourth with 115.

Lupe Delgadillo of Monroe was the top finisher from the region, coming in 16th at 16:23, just ahead of Birmingham’s Mateo Gonzalez at 16:27.

Belmont sophomore Humberto Vargas finished first in 15:21, just ahead of senior teammate Jorge Lopez, who timed 15:24.

Henry Briseno was fifth for the Sentinels in 15:36, followed by Cristobal Martinez in sixth place at 15:42. Alejandro Lemus finished eighth at 15:46.

The Sentinels, ranked third in the state, gave Coach Everardo Silva his second city championship in as many years since taking over the program.

“We use [our tradition] as a motivation to do well at this level and I think we are at a point to expand that tradition by winning the state finals,” Silva said. “If we run the way we did today, we can finish in the top three in the state.”

Silva said he has four runners capable of winning a race on any given day on his team of two seniors and four underclassmen.

The dominance does not figure to end soon, considering that the Sentinels also ran away with the junior varsity and freshman-sophomore championships.