The seasonal goals for the JSerra Girls Cross Country team extend far and wide, but Saturday's focus was extensively on displaying excellence on the county stage for the second year in a row.
And just as they have done throughout the season's first six weeks, the Lions went out and executed their plan to victorious results, as JSerra successfully defended their team title at the 2023 Orange County Cross Country Championships at Oak Canyon Park in Irvine.
The top-ranked team in the state competed in consecutive weekends for the first time this fall, and head coach Chase Frazier was impressed that his team was able respond to challenge both mentally and physically.
"We put so much focus on Clovis because we were running against competition that we don't get to see too often," Frazier said. "The girls re-focused really well to come out on a short week and race in back-to-back weekends against some of the best runners in the state here in Orange County."
JSerra was in control of the race a couple of moments after the opening gun went off, as their packing attack went straight to the front.
After the first mile, the Lions had six runners in the top 11 and held a 73-point lead, effectively serving notice that they would not be relinquishing county bragging rights.
Lions junior Sophie Polay, running in only her second race of the season, served as the team's lead pacesetter for the second straight race.
She was third after the first mile and was able to maintain that position over the final two miles, crossing the finish line in a time of 16:37.5.
Fellow junior Brynn Garcia joined Polay as one of nine runners that clocked a sub-17 minute race by finishing eighth in 16:47.7.
Sophomore Kaylah Tasser (17:07.3) and freshman Reese Holley (17:10.5) were once again stellar in support of Polay and Garcia's top 10 finishes and placed 11th and 14th respectively.
Senior Georgia Jeanneret strode across the finish line in 17:20 as the team's final scorer.
With those five runners scoring in the top 15 among teams that fielded a scoring quintet, JSerra yielded the lowest scoring gap (43 seconds) and the fastest team time (85 minutes, 3 seconds) among all 25 teams in the race.
Those impressive stats added up to a 64-point victory over second place Trabuco Hills (46-110).
Frazier pointed to how his team performed at last month's Woodbridge invitational as the blueprint for what the team was aiming for Saturday.
"The goal was to defend the title by running how we did at the Woodbridge Invitational: keeping that spread short, running together, and working as a team," Frazier said. "We were one second off our five-man average from Woodbridge, which was great."
Laguna Hills junior Holly Barker (16:08.1) won her third consecutive individual county title.
The JSerra Boys Cross Country team also enjoyed a strong day of racing, as the Lions (ranked second in CIF-SS Division 4 coming into the meet) finished fourth overall with 166 points.
Junior Bradley Arrey continued to show form as one of the county's best emerging talents by clocking a time of 14:33.3, which was good for eighth place.
Dana Hills and San Clemente tangled in a tight battle for the team title, with the Dolphins edging the Tritons 48-53 to win the program's 12th county team title, the most all-time in county history.
Dolphins junior Evan Noonan was crowned individual county champion with a superb clocking of 13:59.4.
