INDEX
National Meet Of The Week: Cool Breeze Invitational
MEET COVERAGE
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Extreme heat in Ponoma, Calif. may have the forced meet officials to push back and consolidate races at the national meet of the week until late Saturday evening, but that didn't stop some of California's top distance athletes from racing to impress at the Cool Breeze Invitational.
In the final races of the evening -- the sundown showdown girls and boys competitions -- many athletes making their season debuts on the course put together strong showings at the three-mile distance.
Both individual races saw champions run personal bests in their season openers despite the weather challenges and scheduling changes thrown at them.
Rylee Blade (Santiago Corona, CA) got the PR train started for the later races, clocking 17:13.5 to place first just feet ahead of Maya DeBrouwer (La Canada, CA) in second in 17:14.8. For Blade, that made for a nice seven-second all-time best, while DeBrouwer smashed her previous best at three miles by over a minute. The two top finishers in Blade and DeBrouwer helped lead a total of 14 girls under 18 minutes to make for quite the competitive field.
Capping off the evening, the boys showdown saw yet another individual champion make a send a message in his debut race of the season. Matthew Donis (Highland, CA) took the race commandingly in 14:36.8 to win by 14 seconds and set a 10-second personal record for three miles. However, it was a fight to the finish for the 2-3-4-5 slots as Emmanuel Hernandez Cathedral (Cathedral, CA), Bille Issa (West Ranch), Emmanuel Perez (Cathedral, CA) and Van Filek (Santiago Corona, CA) all ran between 14:50 and 14:55 to round out the top five in that order.
Many of those top individual boys and girls finishes accounted for some of the top three-mile times in the state of California.
The Cool Breeze Invitational may have faced quite the logistical challenges, but that didn't stop athletes across the state from making a statement at Pomona Fairplex.
Race Results: