Ridgeview shines in boys, girls cross country
| Thursday, Oct 30 2008 12:29 AM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 02:21 PM
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The Ridgeview cross country team at practice Wednesday. Adam Setser is the coach.
Tijerra Lynch and Robbie Baker are key runners for the resurgent Ridgeview High cross country teams.
The Ridgeview cross country teams practice Wednesday on campus.
A couple of years ago, Alex Garcia was a Ridgeview High School kid with nothing to do after school. Rather than risk him getting in trouble, his parents suggested he pick up an after-school activity.
"I ran when I was in junior high, and I wasn't that good," Garcia said. "But my mom wanted me to do something."
About the same time, Tijerra Lynch was a standout 800-meter runner on the Ridgeview track team. She was fast, but she admits she was skeptical when coach Adam Setser convinced her to come out for his cross country team.
"Setser is one of my favorite coaches, and so I came out here," Lynch said. "... It was just stressful at first. All I had in my head was 'It shouldn't be that hard."
Robbie Baker was an undersized freshman on the RHS football team who didn't see a whole lot of playing time in his future, so he turned to running also.
"Football, I wasn't really the size to do it," Baker said. "I considered it, and I just wanted to do something different."
Jessica Huizar moved from Los Angeles last year as a sophomore and didn't know anyone at Ridgeview. So, she thought, why not join a fall sport? She figured she'd be no good at volleyball, so cross country it was.
"I used to play softball," Huizar said. "I knew I was fast, but my first race just felt so long."
Where are they now, you ask? Baker and Garcia, who ran right beside established teammates in practice until he couldn't go anymore, are the top two boys runners, and Lynch and Huizar the top two girls on what are the best cross country teams in Bakersfield.
With a collection of first- or second-year runners, Setser, who learned his talent-finding techniques from longtime Foothill coach Ted Oliver, has Ridgeview on the brink of twin Southwest Yosemite League titles -- and possibly much more.
"It's just the old-fashioned, beat-the-bushes recruiting," said Setser, who himself played football as a freshman at Foothill before switching to cross country. "The more you have, the more opportunity to have the diamond in the rough, so to speak. ... Distance running is something almost anyone can be good at, if they put the work in. So I'll take anyone."
So far, Setser has had a Midas-like touch. Huizar consistently has the second-best times on the girls team, behind only Lynch, who's a first-year phenom -- and now says she actually prefers distance running.
"I'm used to shorter practices, but out here, it's just crazy," Lynch said. "Now I can't stand running 200s. I love long distances. My whole perspective on running has changed."
Throw in Ashley Duran, Desiree Armendariz, Linda Gonzalez, Monica Lazo and Natalia Motta -- a mix of established runners and more of running's nouveau riche-- and the Wolf Pack girls are unbeaten on the year as they ready for the Kern County Championships, 11 a.m. Saturday at Hart Park. After that come runs for the SWYL, Central Section and state championships.
"There's going to be pressure," Huizar said. "Not just from the team, but from parents who want us to do well, from coaches, from the other schools who expect us to do good.
"But I think that's going to make it easier. It's going to make us try harder."
To the outsider, the teams have sprung out of nowhere this year, winning an invitational in Fresno and then romping at the early-season East Bakersfield invite. The girls team even beat Stockdale for the first time in school history.
But Setser had an inkling from the second week of June that the team's natural talent would turn into success.
That's when the team approached him about starting a little early.
"As a teacher and a person who wants to have a social life, I'm like, 'Ugghhhh,'" Setser said. "But as a coach, I'm like 'Are you kidding? Of course.'"
The boys team is built around the core of four juniors -- Baker, Garcia, Brian Solis and Lynch's brother Jerrid Lewis. Jaime Madrigal, Miguel Munoz and Michael Anseno complete the rotation.
"They worked hard over the summer, and that makes such a huge difference," Setser said. "Obviously, you have to stay healthy and continue to work hard throughout the season, and I have to keep them interested. But it's all worked out."
The postseason, of course, is a different animal -- Setser said "I'm not going to say I don't lose sleep" about the possibility his runners will tighten up in the big moment.
But you get the feeling that might not happen with this collection of disparate talents that fits together so perfectly.
"That first invitational, we all got really good times," Huizar said. "After that we just started winning.
"And it was like, 'Hey, we can do this.'"
