Burbank senior McKenzie Paul continued to impress with a fifth-place finish in 19:23, as the Bulldogs took sixth with 137 points. Still, as well as Paul ran, she took second in the first league meet of the season, but this time around, both Pham and Kakebeen finished ahead of her.
More importantly for the Falcons, though, was that they finished ahead of Arcadia, which took fifth with 107 points, but had bested CV in the first league meet. Granted, Arcadia was without standout Catrina McAlister, last year's Division I Staub winner, but Pham, Kakebeen and King all finished in front of Arcadia's usual No. 2, Glindyll Mancia (seventh; 19:39).
"What our main focus is to put at least three or four in front of the No. 2 if we want to win league," Kakebeen said. "That was a big step."
Also finishing for Burbank were Christian Shamirian (25th; 20:48), CH Chua (33rd; 21:30), Kayla Martil (35th; 21:34) and Jenny Yoon (39th; 22:06).
A huge cluster went out fast in the Division I boys' meet, but by the midway point, Monroy began to build an insurmountable lead.
"When I took the lead, I just kept it," said Monroy, who added that he believes every race he's improving along with his team. "We're doing great, with a lot of improvement."
Golden Valley won the race with 72 points, while Burbank (187) took eighth, Crescenta Valley (189) was ninth, La Cañada (213) was 10th and Hoover (300) finished 12th.
Crescenta Valley junior Mike Duncan finished 11th in 16:18.
Burbank was led by sophomore Sergio Fraire, who was 15th in 16:27, which was the same time clocked for Burroughs' Charlie Camacho, as the junior finished 16th.
Other Burbank finishers included Andrew Wernstrum (28th; 16:47), Jacob Jun (40th; 17:06), Zach Solomon (47th; 17:19), Jonathan Cisneros (57th; 17:33), Marko Neskovic (77th; 18:09) and Brandyn Marko (80th; 18:14).
exhausted."
La Cañada's top finisher was senior Adam Skaggs (26th, 16:46).
