Coach Phil Pompei will be pulling double duty at St. Francis High in the fall.
The school announced this month that Pompei, the Lancers’ boys cross-country coach since 2013, also will take over the girls squad next season. He replaces longtime girls coach Roberta Chisam, who is retiring at the end of this school year and moving out of the area, according to St. Francis officials.
The cross-country season didn’t end at last month’s state championship meet for a handful of local boys. Runners from Los Altos and St. Francis highs qualified for the Foot Locker West Regional, held Dec. 1 at Mount San Antonio Community College in Walnut.
St. Francis High senior Eric Eng placed 15th in the championship boys race, which included 221 runners. Running the 5-kilometer course for the first time, the Los Altos resident finished in 16 minutes, 2 seconds. That made him the top finisher from the Central Coast Section.
Returning six of its top seven runners, the St. Francis High boys cross-country team was optimistic about its chances of repeating as Division II state champions this year.
But as senior Eric Eng said after returning from Saturday’s event in Fresno, “The state meet is always crazy.”
Smoky skies forced Central Coast Section officials to twice push back the date of the cross-country championships – and move the venue south – but that didn’t slow down St. Francis High. The Lancers’ boys and girls teams repeated as CCS Division II champions Sunday at Toro Park in Salinas, qualifying for this weekend’s state meet.
The St. Francis boys ran away with the title, besting second-place Mitty by 77 points. The top three finishers in the race were Lancers, and two more St. Francis runners placed in the top 10. Colton Colonna was crowned champion with a time of 15 minutes, 31.1 seconds, Eric Eng was the runner-up (15:48.7) and Juan Pablo Garcia took third (15:56.1). Daniel Skahill came in fifth (16:02.2) and Mason Elefant placed 10th (16:33.5).
