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This is from Correspondent Kirby Lee. The Breeze apologizes for not getting it into the print edition, but it's here on the blog in its entirety:

By Kirby Lee

WOODLAND HILLS - David Rosales couldn't have asked for more vocal support from his older brother Pablo Rosales during the L.A. City Section cross country preliminaries at Pierce College on Thursday.

The San Pedro High sophomore, though, would have preferred to have his sibling running by his side.

With Pablo sidelined by an eye infection, David Rosales persevered to finish sixth in his heat in 16:34 over the 2.87-mile course to help San Pedro finish third and qualify for the finals at Pierce College on Nov. 22.

"He is the one that paces the whole group and I just follow right behind him," David said about his brother. "Since he wasn't here, it was pretty tough. It's different because he is the one that motivates me to move along faster."

In last year's City finals, Pablo finished third and David was ninth to help San Pedro place second to earn a berth in the state championships. The brothers finished 1-2 in the Marine League finals last week to help San Pedro to the team title.

Pablo, however, irritated his left eye during the league finals at Peck Park and exasperated the condition run on the dusty trails of Pierce College on Saturday workout. He missed three days of school before returning on Thursday but didn't have medical clearance to run.

"I'd rather not run this week than to miss the finals and hopefully have the team qualify for next week," Pablo said. "I'd be nervous running with out him too."

The brothers run together and share their room where running is the prevailing topic of their
conversations. On Thursday, Pablo perched himself on the crest of the hill on the multi-loop course to offer his support to his brother and his teammates.

"We give each other enough support out there when we're running together but he needs to get used to what it will be in a couple of years when I am not here," Pablo said.

Defending City champion Birmingham of Lake Balboa won the heat with 65 points, followed by El Camino Real of Woodland Hills in second with 71.

San Pedro, which is seeking its fifth section title in seven years, was in third with 107. Narbonne of Harbor City finished fifth with 167 points to qualify.

The top five teams in each of the two heats advanced to the finals. Granada Hills held off Monroe to win the other heat, 51-52.

"It's not what we would have liked but we qualified," San Pedro coach Bruce Thomson said.
"When you're alone and haven't been alone all season, it didn't help David today. I think
everybody had a little come down after league finals. This is qualifying. All you want to do is qualify. I think we'll see a lot better effort from everybody next week."

The San Pedro girls would like to maintain their effort in the finals after winning their heat on
Thursday with the 4-5-7 of sophomore Itzel Ramirez (19:28), senior Maggie Tortoledo
(19:37) and junior Laura Delgado (19:44).

San Pedro totaled 60 points to outdistance runner-up Garfield (90) and Birmingham
(92).

Don't look now, but Leuzinger is developing into a cross country stronghold.

Jose Lezama and Gustavo Rangel qualified for next week's CIF prelims with top-six performances at Thursday's Bay League finals at Entradero Park in Torrance.

"We're getting there," said Lezama, the 2007 Daily Breeze Runner of  the Year.

Lezama had been hampered by injuries, but appeared to be unencumbered and turned in his strongest effort of the season, a second-place finish in 15 minutes, 59 seconds.

Lezama couldn't quite catch Redondo's Cody Schmidt, but made it a much closer finish than anyone expected.

"I felt good, a lot more comfortable. Cody's just a fast runner. He's just better than me," Lezama said. "He's worked hard all summer and all season. I wish I did the same thing. I was lagging, I guess."

Rangel, competing in just his third varsity race, earned the final individual qualifying berth to the CIF prelims with a sixth-place finish of 16:38.

Rangel, who moved to the United States from Mexico two years ago, said he is enjoying the opportunity to run and compete.

"I always wanted to run in my country, but I never had the opportunity," Rangel said. "I just really wanted to go to CIF. I don't even know what that means totally, but that's why I wanted to go hard, to find out."

Following in the footsteps of Leuzinger cross country runner Jose Lezama, there appears to be another Olympian rising up quickly through the ranks of  the Bay League.

Meet Gustavo Rangel, who is in his second year in the United States after moving from Mexico.

In only his second Bay League meet, Rangel jumped from 22nd place to 10th place with a time of 16 minutes, 22 seconds on the three-mile Redondo High course, the highest non-Palos Verdes or non-Redondo runner in the field.

Rangel said he remembers hearing about Lezama's quick ascension in the Bay League, going from unknown junior varsity runner to Bay League champion in half a season. He even said it inspired him a bit.

"When I first got to high school, I saw Jose getting first place, and it made me want to go for it," Rangel said.

Rangel could have been ninth had he not lost a sprint at the end to Redondo's Justin Caracoza, but it was nonetheless an impressive performance, especially considering Lezama was out with an ankle injury.

"The last 400, that was actually the best I felt," Rangel said.

Could this be the year the Olympians have two top-five Bay League runners? Rangel would probably need a top-five finish to advance to the CIF finals, a goal he has firmly established in his mind. 

"To qualify for CIF would be my dream," Rangel said.

We've added a searchable data base to the Daily Breeze Web site that you can use to keep up with area history. There are hundreds of former South Bay athletes entered, and it's a list we know will expand substantially when all of you begin contributing the names and histories of those we may have missed.  It's probably weighted toward more recent graduates in the early stages, largely because those people have been easier to keep tabs on in recent years.

The more you contribute or help plug the gaps, the more accurate the information can be and the more up to date we can keep all of you when it comes to who's gone on to which college, etc. If you know of a Banning High linebacker from the 1960s who went on to play some college or pro ball, go ahead and add his name to the list.  Did we miss a South Bay-bred volleyball standout who played collegiately and/or overseas, a former cross country runner who went on to great things?  Fill us in.

We want your feedback -- you'll see there's an option for you to contribute names of former South Bay standouts who should be added to the list.  We want this to become a robust list of area history, a place you can turn to see who has starred for your alma mater over the years or perhaps see what became of a former classmate you lost track of.

Here's the link to the database, also available through a button on the prep portion of the Breeze Web site. Thanks again.

http://www.dailybreeze.com/southbayathletes

Redondo senior Cody Schmidt set an all-time meet record of 14 minutes, 33 seconds at the Warren-Stauffer Invitational at Hollydale Park in South Gate. Schmidt's three-mile mark bettered the 1999 time of 14:49 set by Ozzie Pina of Lakewood. Schmidt's twin brother, Simon Schmidt, was second in 14:47, also under the previous record.

Redondo junior Chloe Curtis covered the same course in 17:33 to post the top girls time of the day and the No. 5 time in meet history.

David Cardona of North Torrance emerged as the big winner in the South Bay Cup in a meet where many of the other South Bay runners decided to take the day off, even if they eventually ended up running the race.

Kudos for Cardona, pictured to the near-right, for giving a full effort, using every ounce of his energy on a rare hot October day to overtake the Rosales brothers of San Pedro in the final 800 meters, winning in 15:02. Pablo Rosales finished second in 15:08, and David Rosales took third in 15:10.

Chadwick's Kelly Owen, pictured on the far right, won the girls race in 18:24, but admitted she treated the race on the flat 2.9-mile Columbia Park course as more of a workout than a true race. Teammate Jaye Buchbinder finished second in 18:29.

Mira Costa, obviously the deepest girls team in the area, won the girls team title despite a laid-back effort. Savannah Pio and Shadeh Tabatabai acted more as pacesetters for their teammates than runners trying to win a big meet. Pio admitted, "I don't even know my time, it's chill."

At least Mira Costa's big guns ran the race. But is this how far the South Bay Cup has fallen? To not attract all the area's stars is one thing with all the scheduling complications and such. But for most of the participants to coast through the meet is a sad state of affairs in what should be an exciting local meet that pits the Bay, Pioneer, Marine and Prep Leagues in a rare showdown. Teams are missing out on a great meet.

OK, so Palos Verdes freshman Rebecca Mehra won the rated race at the Woodbridge Invitaitonal in Irvine last Saturday, so she wasn't going to sneak up on anyone.

But that didn't make her performance at Thursday's opening Bay League meet any less impressive.

Mehra rallied past Redondo's Chloe Curtis and secured a second-place finish in 19 minutes, 46 seconds on the Palos Verdes course, 20 seconds behind Mira Costa's Savannah Pio. It was particularly impressive since Mehra said she is battling tendonitis in both her hips.

"My team put me at the front of the (starting) line because I won the rated race at Woodbridge, but I didn't know how I'd do," Mehra said. "It was pretty fun to race against fast people like Savannah and Chloe. I was really happy with how I did."

Leuzinger's Jose Lezama may be the reigning Daily Breeze Runner of the Year, but there was a chance that Leuzinger's cross country program was not going to take off this year.

The Centinela Valley Unified School District had canceled all non-football fall sports in its high schools, but Coach Erich Tucker and Lezama found a way to continue competing this year by raising their own funds to compete.

Tucker took the job on a volunteer basis, and Lezama received a major boost from one of his old P.E. teachers to keep him running.

Jesus Mejia, a P.E. teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School in Lawndale, was Lezama's biggest contributor, donating $100 to the Keep Lezama running fund.

Lezama took third at the opening Bay League meet Thursday in 17 minutes, 3 seconds at the rugged three-mile Palos Verdes course, finishing behind Redondo twins Cody Schmidt (16:12) and Simon Schmidt (16:32).

"They ran a good race, and now I know I need to start working even harder," Lezama said.

The buzz in the running community over the summer was about the future of two South Bay runners. Is Leuzinger's Jose Lezama, the reigning Daily Breeze Runner of the Year, coming back this year? And what about Mira Costa star runner Kevyn Murphy, a two-time Runner of the Year?

Lezama is indeed back, and maybe the bigger surprise is that he's still at Leuzinger. The Centinela Valley School District decided to drop all non-football fall sports, so there was talk Lezama might end up at another Bay League school and that he had been running with Redondo over the summer. But Leuzinger coach Erich Tucker decided to stay on in a volunteer position, meaning the Olympians will run for another year and Lezama is primed to defend his Bay League title.

The bad news is that Murphy has decided to sit out her senior season. This is a sad situation for both parties. Murphy misses out on a chance to shine in her senior season after an injury-plagued junior campaign, and a deep, talented Mira Costa team loses one of the Southland's top runners. Not that her presence would have made much of a difference with Saugus moving down to Division II, essentially squashing Mira Costa's hopes of a CIF or state title. Mira Costa's still got the deepest girls team in the area, bar none, with Shadeh Tabatabai, Savannah Pio, Aryn Foland and Aleyna LeCroix providing a fearsome foursome, but it would have been nice to add Murphy to the mix.

Woodbridge is this weekend, and the Bay League season kicks off next Thursday at the Palos Verdes course.