Hartman, Drossin Find Conditions More Difficult Than Competition

An unseasonably warm November day bothered many runners in the Southern Section cross-country preliminaries Saturday, although the favored teams and individuals managed to prevail.

Dave Hartman of Canyon and Agoura’s Deena Drossin, contenders for the Division I boys’ and girls’ titles, won their heats by considerable margins but both said their wins did not come easily.

Hartman timed 15 minutes 24 seconds over the challenging, three-mile Mt. San Antonio College course, finishing 24 seconds ahead of Dana Hills’ Dan Niednagel. Drossin clocked 17:54 in winning her heat by almost a minute over teammate Tiffany York.

“It was not comfortable,” Drossin said of her win. “It was the heat. I couldn’t have gone any faster than that.”

Hartman, who ran 14:51 in the Mt. SAC Invitational on Oct. 20, said he ran primarily for the win and will face Arroyo Grande’s Louie Quintana in the final, Nov. 17 at Mt. SAC. Quintana’s time of 14:47 was the fastest of the day.

The heat was especially tough on Fillmore’s Maribella Aparicio. Last year’s 1-A Division champion collapsed about 100 yards from the finish while running in sixth place. She later recovered.

As expected, the Hart boys’ and Agoura girls’ teams, ranked second and first in the state, easily won their heats.

Hart placed five runners among the top seven finishers to win its heat with 25 points, well ahead of Dana Hills (72) and Canyon (96).

Billy Dixon led the Indians with a third-place finish in 15:57 and sophomore Keith Grossman was fourth in 16:05.