SALINAS — Watsonville’s star sophomore cross country runner Layla Ruiz sent a brief and blunt message at Saturday’s Pacific Coast Athletic League Championships.
“I’ll be fine,” Ruiz said.
After being hampered by a nagging leg injury throughout the year, Ruiz returned to her usual dominant self to cruise to the individual PCAL Cypress division crown, and post the fastest overall time of the day on the 3-mile Toro Park course in Salinas.
St. Francis was just as dominant in the Santa Lucia division, scoring a 24-50 team victory over Oakwood for the program’s first-ever league championship.
“Everyone gave it their all and we threw it down,” said St. Francis senior Riley Croghan.
Ruiz, who had raced just three times this fall before Saturday’s finals, trotted across the finish line with a time of 19 minutes, and 27 seconds to earn her second straight league title. She was 39 seconds faster than the runner-up in her division, and edged Gabilan division champion Colleen Lang by 18 seconds.
“I was just trying to race tactically,” said Ruiz, the top freshman runner in Northern California last season. “That first mile was kind of slow, and I had to pick it up a lot in those last two miles. They felt really nice.”
Which is something she has not been able to say while running through pain in the weeks leading up to Saturday.
“We told her to not stress, and to run her race,” said Watsonville head coach Rob Cornett. “But I think she wanted to send a little bit of a message racing against some of those Gabilan runners…She’s making progress.”
Ruiz will have two weeks to rest and recover before she toes the line at the Central Coast Section Championships at Crystal Springs in Belmont.
Her teammates will join her, as Watsonville qualified as a team for the section meet after a second-place finish in the Cypress.
Seaside won the division’s team title over the Wildcatz, 51-59.
Watsonville sophomore Carolina Avalos took eighth (23:18), but no other Watsonville runner finished higher than 15th.
Seaside had its first four land in the top 13.
“We knew that the cluster running of Seaside was going to hurt us,” Cornett said. “We told the girls to get our of their comfort zone, and they did. They ran well.”
St. Francis’s scoring five all finished in the top 12 of the Santa Lucia.
Croghan led the Sharks in third (22:00), while juniors Angelika Castro (22:20) and Camryn Ryan (22:52) finished fourth and fifth, respectively. Freshman Peyton Croghan was 11th (25:43) and senior Natalie Henn took 12th (25:50).
“They wanted it,” said St. Francis head coach Ramona Young. “There’s a lot of pride in wanting to be a league champion. We don’t get this opportunity very often, and they decided to throw it down and make it happen.”
Ceiba College Prep freshman Nellie Rubio-Pintor also flexed her muscle in the Santa Lucia. The junior varsity call-up proved her performances over the last two center meets were no fluke, taking second in the division with a time of 20:21 — just two seconds behind champion Kate Marcotullio of Oakwood.
Rubio-Pintor clipped Marcotullio by a tenth of a second in the final center meet of the season, but couldn’t edge the Hawks’ sophomore in a footrace down the final stretch of Saturday’s meet.
Rubio-Pintor said the back-and-forth between the two has evolved into a small rivalry.
A friendly one, to be exact.
“We were just telling each other, ‘good job, you did good’” Rubio-Pintor said of their banter after the race.
The two will meet again at CCS. Both will compete in Division V along with St. Francis.
Watsonville, meanwhile, heads to CCS as a D-I team.
North Monterey County, too, qualified for the section meet as the Gabilan’s representative in D-III.
The Condors took fifth as a team in the Gabilan. Senior Faith Mora was their top finisher, placing sixth in 20:43.
Gilroy won the Gabilan title, 66-80, over San Benito.
Pajaro Valley finished sixth in the Cypress, but junior Alexandra Romero qualified for CCS as an individual after taking 10th in 24:12.
Monte Vista Christian junior Elizabeth Splees also qualified for CCS as an individual following her ninth-place finish in 25:08.
