Haily Macedo finished 33rd among a pack of 154 runners to snare Oakdale High’s lone qualification from the Sac-Joaquin Sub-Section championships to Saturday’s SJS finals in Folsom.

Macedo’s season-best time of 21 minutes, 33 seconds on the difficult course at Frogtown in Angels Camp led Oakdale to a 12th place finish among 30 teams, just two placements shy of advancing all varsity girl runners to Folsom’s SJS championships.

“I am extremely pleased with our teams’ performance and especially happy for Haily Macedo for qualifying to Sections,” Oakdale cross country coach Guy Fowler said. “It shows what running over the summer and training hard in practice can do.”

Oakdale girls also saw sharp varsity times from Liz Erwin (52nd place), Marieke Delzer (58th) and Ariana Barajas (69th).

Oakdale’s varsity boys were hit with a few hard-luck moments in the race, especially when top runner Erik Padilla was forced to leave his strong position after the first mile when he suffered a severe cramp he couldn’t recover from.

Chris Lopez (flu), also couldn’t compete, but allowed Juan Gonzales to run in his place. Andrew Markel (86th), Mario Jimenez (92nd) and Bryan Berst (98th) managed to finish in the top 100 as well.

“The girls team had a great season and just missed qualifying as a team to sections, but this team has laid a great foundation for the future teams,” Fowler said. “The boys team is on the brink of becoming a very good team and the future is bright for them.”

Macedo takes on the top runners in the Section on Saturday at Willow Hill.