Hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday weekend. Back to our Year in Review series with girls cross country.

On another note, a former Kern County athlete, Grant Desme of Stockdale, is back in town as a professional with the Stockton Ports of the California League. Stockton is at Sam Lynn Ball Park one more time tonight to face the Blaze at 7:45. If you've got an inkling, get out to Sam Lynn to see Grant play. Otherwise, you can look for a story about him in Tuesday's paper.

2008-09 Kern County GIRLS CROSS COUNTRY

Overview: Everything came together at once for Ridgeview, which had traditionally bowed to league rivals Stockdale and Centennial in cross country like in so many other sports. But this year, coach Adam Setser and the Wolf Pack ran their way to the top of the SWYL, the county and eventually the entire Division III portion of the Central Section. Elsewhere, there wasn’t a whole lot to shout about: Stockdale had another solid team, and some individual runners (Bakersfield sophomore Sarah Baker, Garces junior Monica Guzman, North’s Cecilia Lopez and Shafter’s Elizabeth Wittenberg) enjoyed nice seasons.

Best team: Ridgeview had a motley bunch of athletes assembled by Setser that found their talent together. The Wolf Pack was led by Tijerra Lynch, a sophomore who finished third in the D-III section race, and the trio of Desiree Armendariz, Ashley Duran and Jessica Huizar was enough to dominate the rest of the county and outlast the section at Woodward Park in November.
Honorable mention: Stockdale, North, Shafter, Foothill

Best runner: Always an 800-meter specialist, Lynch found that she was pretty fast when you took her off the track and made her run farther and up hills, too. She got better and better as the year went on, shattering her PR at the Kern County championships at Hart Park with an 18:58.20. Then she ran her best ever at Woodward in the section meet, a 19:31 and then a solid 19:38 in her first state meet.
Honorable mention: Elizabeth Wittenberg, Shafter; Monica Guzman, Garces; Sarah Baker, Bakersfield; Natalie Fernandez, Foothill

Best race: Has to be the section meet, where Ridgeview ran well and then counted runners and did math until the official results came in, proclaiming them the narrow Division III winner over Clovis North and Madera South. Also exciting was Lynch’s PR and corresponding third-place finish and a couple of sub-20 times turned in by Guzman and Wittenberg.
Honorable mention: Kern County championships, East Invitational

A look ahead: The best thing about this past year in Kern County girls cross country was the youth. Only one member of The Californian’s All-Area team was a senior (Wittenberg), and three — Lynch, Baker and Fernandez — were only sophomores. I’d expect at least one or two of that group to make a big step from section contention to state contention over the next two years. On the team level, all fingers point to Ridgeview again, where talent, youth and energetic coaching from Setser have built a budding powerhouse. Baker, by the way, will try to win her third SEYL championship in three tries next fall, and Fernandez will try to improve on her performance last year when she became Foothill’s first girls state qualifier. Guzman and East’s Lucy Garcia were both had impressive junior seasons and will be back as well.

Year in Review Index
July 1: Football
July 2: Volleyball
July 3: Boys cross country
July 6: Girls cross country

Tomorrow: Girls tennis