Skyline Just Misses Sweep at CIF-Oakland Section Finals


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Seniors William Boyd and Eleanor Wikstrom won individual titles and the Skyline High boys team were a 12-point winner in the team competition as the Titans program won three of the four titles at the CIF-Oakland Section Championships held Wednesday on the 5K MLK Shoreline course. 

Oakland Tech, led by sophomore Clair Garrett's runner-up finish, won the girls team title by one point over Skyline. 

In that girls race -- won by Wikstrom in 18:40.30 with a gap of 46.69 seconds ahead of Garrett -- was a back-and-forth battle where the top 10 finishers were either from Oakland Tech or Skyline. The winner wasn't decided until Oakland Tech sophomore Caitlin Lee crossed the line in ninth place at 20:57.27, more than a minute ahead of Skyline's No. 5 scorer. 

Boyd won the boys title, running the 5K course in 15:57.98 with junior teammate Jonathan Simmons second in 16:11.56. Senior Kyle Byrne was fourth (17:04.52), freshman Andy Ixtabalan Arg was sixth (17:16.30) and junior Andrew Scannell was ningth (17:4472) among scorers for Skyline.

Senior William Webster was third overall in the boys race in 16:13.94 to lead Oakland Tech. 

Only the team champions qualified for the Nov. 30 State Championships at Woodward Park in Fresno. Individually, the top five not on the winning team and placing among the top eight overall advanced.

Those advancing to State among the boys are all from Oakland Tech: Webster, senior Benjamin Nicholas (17:08.24), freshman Owen Boulet (17:16.30) and sophomore Diego Weikum (17:35.00).

Those advancing to State among the girls are all from Skyline: Wikstrom, junior Greta Glueck (19:42.75), sophomore Silvia Kambouridis (20:18.29) and junior Emma Pitstick (20:55.67).

This was the first year the Oakland Section Championships were held at the MLK Shoreline course after years at Joaquin Miller Park, making both winning times by Wikstrom and Boyd championship meet course records. Wikstrom and Boyd also broke the previous course records set in 2016 by Oakland Tech's Johanna Ross 19:04 and Oakland Tech's Nick Kleiber 16:30.

Last year's meet was not held because of unhealthful air quality as a result of lingering smoke from wildfires in Northern California. Top-ranked teams, Skyline boys and Oakland Tech girls, along with selected individuals, were waived onto the State Championships. This year's win is the second in a row on the cours for the Skyline boys and fourth in a row on the course for the Oakland Tech girls.

Oakland and San Francisco are far and away the smallest among the state's 10 sections. Oakland had nine schools represented in the boys competition and eight in the girls race. The San Francisco All-City Championships, also held Wednesday, had similar team participation numbers.

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File photos of Boyd and Wikstrom from the Clovis Invitational by DeAnna Turner.

Inserted photos courtesy of Skyline coach Sean Kohles via the team's album on Flickr