Two Area Runners in Cross-Country Championships

The nation’s finest high school cross-country runners will participate Saturday in the annual Foot Locker National Championships at Morley Field in San Diego.

Courtney Pugmire of Esperanza and Heather Garritson of Buena Park will compete for the West squad. Each of the four regional teams has 16 runners (eight boys and eight girls) who qualified at regional finals.

Pugmire, a senior who finished second at the State Division I finals and at the Orange County Championships, qualified by virtue of her fourth-place finish in last week’s regional race in Fresno’s Woodward Park. Garritson, a freshman and already the State Division III champion, qualified with a seventh-place finish.

Garritson’s sister Carrie, a freshman at Alabama, was the first to qualify four consecutive years for the national championship race.