It has been another magnificent run for the San Pedro High girls cross-country team, as senior Cynthia Kelso leads a group of seven great runners who once again has the Pirates in the CIF State Cross-Country Meet this Saturday in Fresno.

Kelso has been on the varsity for three years, running to three Marine League titles and in the CIF State meet two of those years.
“Cynthia has been really working hard this season,” fellow co-captain and senior Bronwyn Bunnell says of Kelso. “We’ve been friends since Dana (Middle School).”
Winning the Marine League finals meet on November 5 and was the highest finisher out of the Pirate runners in last Saturday’s CIF-Los Angeles City Section Division I finals race where San Pedro finished second with 93 points (champion Palisades finished with 62), Kelso is definitely looking to go out with a bang in her last race.
“I’m definitely more excited to race this year (in Fresno),” Kelso says. “It’s going to be my last cross country race and I can’t wait to go out there and make the most of it.”
Kelso is co-captain with fellow senior Bronwyn Bunnell, the only remaining member of the 2012 San Pedro team that won its last of nine City Section championships under Bruce Thomson (who was an assistant to coach Art Carrillo of the 1999 team that first won a City title). The Pirates also feature junior Alexa De La Pena, senior Jael Marquez, and the sophomore trio of Perla Aguilar Maya Richardson and Chloe DeLeon, who all finished in the Top 10 of the Marine League finals.
One big aspect of the Pirates’ success has always been one critical part of every run at Peck Park… the infamous Triple Hill.
“Running Triple Hill every Thursday has done a great job of preparing everybody,” Kelso says. “There’s not a hill at Pierce College (the site of the CIF-LACS finals) or Fresno that’s more difficult than Triple, no harder course than Peck Park. We definitely have an advantage that other teams don’t.”
Kelso, along with Bunnell, join the ranks of former great Pirate cross-country runners such as Valerie Flores-Chavez, Julia Gray, Heather Rosas, Ashley Carrera, Laura Delgado, Maddy Post, Erica Hovind, Evelyn Gonzalez, Lorena Garcia and Danielle Nunez, all of whom have continued to run at the NCAA level.
“It’s both a huge honor and shock to be compared to such great runners,” Kelso says. “It’s definitely something I never imagined my freshman year.”
San Pedro will run at 12:50 pm on Saturday at the CIF State Cross-Country Meet at Woodward Park in Fresno.