Arroyo Grande’s Christian Ricketts turns in top time in CIF cross country prelims

Christian Ricketts ran the fastest time at the CIF-Southern Section Cross Country Prelims in Riverside on Friday, leading the Arroyo Grande boys team to a fourth-place team finish and securing its spot in the section finals next week.

Ricketts won his Division 1 heat by 18 seconds with a time of 14:49, the only sub-15 time run on the 3-mile Riverside City Cross Country Course. Arroyo Grande’s Luis Jazo (15:16) and Ban Taylor (15:20) finished in eighth and 13th, respectively.

The Arroyo Grande girls team finished in fourth behind Malia Simon’s third-place finish with a time of 18:02. Rosa Granados (18:20) finished sixth for Arroyo Grande.

San Luis Obispo’s Callum Bolger won his Division 4 heat with a time of 15:33 and helped the Tigers team finish in third place and advance to the finals.

The San Luis Obisopo (7th) and Atascadero (8th) girls teams and the Nipomo and Atascadero boys teams also finished in the top 8 to advance to the finals in Division 4. Nipomo sophomore Devin Diaz finished in third with a time of 16:06 in his heat.

The Morro Bay girls team also qualified for the finals, finishing in 12th in Division 4, led by sophomore Audrey McClish’s 17th-place finish (19:04).

This story was originally published November 11, 2016 at 6:52 PM with the headline "Arroyo Grande’s Christian Ricketts turns in top time in CIF cross country prelims."