Alsen a Favorite in Cross-Country Final

Valley-area runners will attempt to end some long droughts at the City cross-country championships at Pierce College this morning.

Ian Alsen of Granada Hills is favored to become the first individual champion from the Valley-area since 1981, and Birmingham and Granada Hills could unseat four-time defending champion Belmont as City championship.

Alsen, who has the City Section’s fastest time over Pierce’s three-mile course (15:09), will receive his stiffest challenge from Tefere Gebre of Belmont and Sven Haug of Birmingham.

Haug had the fastest time (15:12) at Tuesday’s preliminaries and leads a Birmingham contingent that could become the first Valley-area team champion since Chatsworth in 1978.

In the girls race, Sandra Rodriguez, whose 18:01 effort in the preliminaries was the fastest time in the City, is favored to win the individual title and lead her team to an easy victory.

Kennedy, lead by Sheri Lawson, the City track champion at 3,200 meters, will offer Wilson the strongest challenge.

Meanwhile in San Diego, Melissa Sutton of Newbury Park and Bryan Dameworth of Agoura will be running in the Kinney national cross-country championships at Morley Field.

Sutton, the three-time Southern Section 4-A champion, is making her third consecutive national championship appearance and will attempt to improve upon her sixth-place finish of 1985.

Dameworth, who finished third at the Southern Section’s 2-A championship, became the first freshman to qualify for the boys national championships when he finished eighth in the west regionals at Fresno’s Woodward Park a week ago.

Notes

Former Birmingham assistant Pat Connelly, who had been barred from the City championships by City administrator Lee Joseph for allegedly calling out split times to Birmingham runners at Tuesday’s preliminaries, will be allowed to attend today’s meet.

Hal Harkness, director of Interscholastic Athletics for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said that Connelly had been reinstated after talking to all the parties involved.