Newport Harbor might be in position to repeat

Few teams can lose their best athlete to graduation and come back the next season beaming with confidence. The Newport Harbor High girls cross country team did just that.

Whitney Blue is now running at Arizona State and with her she took second- and sixth-place finishes in the CIF Southern Section Division II meet and state championships, respectively. She also leaves holding the school record with a time of 16 minutes, 33 seconds, posted at the Sea View League finals.

With the remaining six runners from the section title team returning, Coach Eric Tweit, who is entering his 18th season at the Sailors’ helm, said his team is improved.

“It has been a long time since we’ve had this much experience returning,” Tweit said. “Two through seven, we are returning everyone of those runners and all of them are better than last year.”

Tweit said that while he thinks this team is better, he will not know for certain until Newport Harbor runs its first meet, the Laguna Hills Invitational on Sept. 9.

“I coach the same way I have coached all of my life,” Tweit said of the program’s success. “So it’s obviously something about the kids.”

Leading the way will be the team’s three seniors.

Taylor Bryson finished third in the 1,600 meters at the Sea View League track and field finals as a junior.

Lauren Maddox is entering her fourth varsity season, and Melissa Mead finished 25th at the cross country state championships in 2005.

None of them is a clear-cut No. 1.

“The top three girls are doing a great job in leading the team,” Tweit said. “They have such a great attitude. They all have a great work ethic.”

And the Sailors have been working. The team started training 100 days before the first meet with a clear focus on this year, not past success.

“I don’t want them to have such high expectations because of last year,” Tweit said. “We don’t have to go out and win every meet, just keep getting better and better.”

Junior Sophia Ditty and sophomores Desiree Alexander and Erica Pearson also return from last year’s squad.

Junior Jennifer Cain is the leading candidate to fill the seventh spot. Juniors Christina Cooley and Jessica Brostek along with sophomores Terra Friedman, Stephanie Badum and Skye Jackson are hot on her heels.

“They are all having a pretty good summer,” Tweit said.

The Sailors also have a new league to contend with, the Sunset League, which features perennially strong teams from Esperanza, Fountain Valley and Edison, which won the league title last year. Four of the league’s six teams compete in Division I.

“I enjoyed the league we were in, but we can’t look back,” Tweit said.

With a strong core, the main obstacle to a positive season is injury.

“If we stay healthy, we will be successful,” Tweit said. “I can’t tell you if success means making CIF or doing well in state. I don’t want to get too caught up in expectations. This year we are starting over again.”

No matter the year, the goals remain the same.

“Obviously we want to get to CIF,” Tweit said. “We’d like to win. We’d like to do better. We’d like to win state. But these are our goals every year.”