Running for a Repeat

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

The Palisades High boys and girls cross country teams are ready to make their runs at another City Section championship and depth could be the key to the Dolphins defending the titles they swept last fall at Pierce College.

Coach Robert Hockley, who was selected as the CIF-LA representative for the NFHS California State Coach of the Year in 2023-24, said the honor belongs to every runner in the program as well as the parents who support it along with Athletic Director Rocky Montz.

“It takes a village,” said Hockley, who has helped countless athletes achieve their fitness goals through his private training business (www.tricorecoaching.com). “We enjoyed great success last season with both boys and girls winning City and the boys placing fourth in Division I at the state meet, posting the fastest-ever team time by a City school.”

Despite the graduation of last spring’s Palisadian-Post Cup winner Max Fields, who was the backbone of the Dolphins’ cross country and track programs for four years (winning four individual section titles and leading his team to three straight cross country championships) as well as Axel Mammen (fifth at the City cross country finals last year), the boys return a solid group highlighted by senior Owen Lewicky and juniors Blake Sigworth, Zach Cohen and Andrew Razo. They will attempt to make it four titles in a row and break their own finals time standard of 1:17:21.11, which bettered a long-standing record set by Belmont in the late 1990s.

Sigworth was third behind Joseph Vargas of Cleveland High and Fields at last year’s cross country finals and was runner-up to Fields in the 3200 with a time of 9:37.24 last May at the City track finals, is anticipating a breakout year.

“I learned so much from Max… he was a great mentor and having someone to push me helped me to get better faster,” said Sigworth, who lives in Marquez Knolls and attended Marquez Elementary and Paul Revere Middle School, where he first took up competitive running. “It’s not merely about training, it’s sleep, it’s diet, it’s recovery… there’s so much that goes into it. Even though it’s somewhat of a rebuilding year I’m confident we can defend the title. One of my goals is to be individual City champion and also Max ran 14:35 at Woodbridge so I’d like to be around that.”           

In the Dolphins’ first meet of the season, the three-mile Great Cow Run on Aug.31 at John Glenn High in Norwalk, Sigworth was first in a field of 209 runners with a time of 15:09.4 and he paced Palisades to second in the team standings with 72 points—six more than first-place West Torrance.   

Sigworth has already clocked faster times than Fields in the 800 and 1600 meters and Lewicky has done the same in the 800. Cohen was fourth in 15:30.3 at the Great Cow Run and Lewicky was sixth in 15:32.7.

“It was pretty good for my first race, I was happy with that coming off a broken foot in March,” said Lewicky, who edged Fields to win the City 3200 as a sophomore in 2023 when his older teammate was weakened with the flu. “Next year we have the potential to be better than we’ve ever been.”

Cohen, who was seventh at City finals last fall in 15:31.4 (one spot ahead of Lewicky), thinks the boys will be even better than last year: “Our front of the pack will be way faster. I never ran cross country until I got here and I don’t run track, although I want to try it this year. I have a good aerobic engine. I just started my training but I’m hoping to be in the 14:30s at Woodbridge. Andrew [Razo] is going to be someone to watch!”

Contributing to the boys’ success  will be triplets Sebastian, Justin and

Ethan Funk, fellow freshman Theo Mayeda, sophomore Mako Holt and juniors Jackson Taylor and Lajus Collins and senior Basel Thierry.   

In coaching for more than 25 years across five different sports, Hockley has worked with every level and age of athlete from high school to a two-time Olympian, to an 80-year old Ironman World Championship qualifier. His experience has raised Palisades’ program to the top of the City ladder and he believes running is a vehicle for teaching many of life’s lessons.

“At Pali, we’re hoping to develop great young adults who just happen to become faster runners along the way,” he said. “As far as that first meet, nothing really surprised me. Both teams ran up to expectations.”

Hockley hopes for an even stronger girls team this year than the one that ended Granada Hills’ streak of five straight titles last fall. Led by sophomores Zoey Morris, Gabriella Gilyard and Vitalija Schafer, juniors Louisa “Lulu” Mammen and Daila Harinck, senior Cece Tierney and newcomers Maya Hively, Eleanor Mammen, Kendal Shaver, Amelia Halpin and others, the Dolphins should have enough to offset the graduation of Kyra Morris (Zoey’s older sister, who was fourth at City cross country finals and in the 3200 last spring) and Virginia O’Neill.

Zoey Morris, the individual cross country champion as a ninth-grader in 17:41 flat last November as well as the City 3200 champion on the track with a time of 11:19.93 in the eight-lap race, picked up where she left off with a second-place 18:14.1 effort at the Great Cow Run while  leading the Dolphins to the varsity girls team title with 63 points.     

“Mammoth was fun,” Morris said of the team’s annual summer training trip. “I enjoy running with Ella, Lulu and all of my teammates. We have some really good new girls. I had a solid first race and I’d like to run sub-18 by City finals.”   

Mammen will miss her brother Axel, who graduated in the spring, but was 10th at the Great Cow in 18:44.5, crossing the finish line side by side with Hively, a freshman who came from Revere and is poised to be an immediate contributor.

Hively’s main sport is soccer. She plays club for the LA Breakers and will play for Palisades in the winter but until then the Rustic Canyon resident is anxious to build stamina and camaraderie in cross country.

In her case, Hockley’s extensive background in the world of semipro soccer should prove quite helpful, since Hively wants to play soccer at a collegiate level, perhaps at one of her “dream” schools, UCLA or Stanford. Hockley knows how to juggle the two sports and has privately helped train numerous soccer players for colleges like Michigan, Occidental and Loyola Marymount.

“I’ve only been running for three years, since sixth grade, but this is my 11th year playing soccer,” said Hively, whose three-year younger siblings (twins Bennett and Parker) also play soccer and just started at Revere. “Running is helpful to improve endurance and it’s good to balance out my schedule. I don’t like track meets at all but cross country is fun because of the courses. Everyone on the team is super nice! It’s a positive environment. Lulu and I got the same time in the first race.”

Shaver clocked 20:37.8 at Great Cow and placed 42nd, three spots behind Schafer. Now a sophomore, she moved to the Via Bluffs from Carlsbad and she too used to play soccer. Her father John is the new Pastor at Community United Methodist Church of Pacific Palisades and he first got Kendal and her sister into running.          

“I’ve been training and working  hard and it’s easier to do that with friends,” Shaver said. “Pali has a much stronger team than the one I came from, especially at state. Cross country keeps me in shape and the girls were all nice and welcoming. I’m enjoying it more than I thought. I like living close to the water, shopping in the Village and running down to the beach.”

Palisades is scheduled to run next in the 43rd Annual Woodbridge Classic on Sept. 21 at the Great Park in Irvine. The boys are entered in the night’s final race just before 10 p.m., the Doug Speck Sweepstakes, reserved for the elite teams. The girls will compete one hour earlier in the varsity rated race.

Last year, the boys finished 20th out of 34 teams in the Sweepstakes race and were the only City team to qualify. Fields was 49th out of 267 runners, Lewicky and Cohen were 147th and 148th, respectively, while Sigworth was 186th in 15:34.9.

The girls finished 11th in the Blue Division varsity B race a year ago at Woodbridge, with Louisa Mammen (18:32.5) and Kyra Morris (18:37.2) placing 17th and 18th, respectively, and Zoey Morris (18:52.5) coming in 27th out of 227 runners.

Granada Hills’ Samantha Pacheco won that race, but Zoey Morris rebounded to upset the Highlanders sophomore at the City finals in Woodland Hills.