By Leonard COUTIN

Falcon senior Caitlyn Couch stole the show on Thursday when she ran one of her best races at the non-scoring mini invitational against Garfield and Westridge at CV Park. While the boys’ varsity runners and select girls sat out in preparation for the first league meet that took place Tuesday, Couch, a transfer student from Bell-Jeff, proved she can be counted on to perform well in the upcoming season. Although a Glendale resident, Couch attended Bell-Jeff High School where her dad, Jim Couch, coaches and teaches. But as summer drew to a close, it appeared that Bell-Jeff would not have enough female runners for its cross-country season. Couch chose to return to Glendale schools to fulfill her dream of running during her senior year.

Couch was not unfamiliar with the Falcon course; run times can be found for her in the Staub-Barnes Invitationals. On Thursday, she immediately pushed the pace to finish first with a time of 19:14 followed by teammates Samantha Moore (20:21), McKenna Heeg (20:51), Gabby Borraez (20:55), Issy Lieberman (20:59), Melissa Owens (21:08) and Sarah Nakama (21:42).

“We are trying to build our program and having the experience of running other courses makes a big difference for the runners,” said Garfield head coach Daniel Martinez.       

Although the majority of the Falcon varsity runners sat out, CV had some good performances by its JV and frosh/soph runners. Sophomore Erik Faeustle broke apart Garfield’s strong pack to place third running 17:40 and teammate David Mc Nelis took ninth running a solid time of 18:27.

Garfield High outstanding runners were Christian Hernandez, who placed first with a time of 17:19, and David Reyes ran 17:24. Denis Escobar placed fourth (18:04), Jai Tlatenchi fifth (18:05), Andrey Arista sixth (18:07), Daniel Casas seventh (18:15) and Michael Mc Carthy eighth (18:26).

  Leonard Coutin