WALNUT — Saturday at Mt. In the middle of the SAC Girls Individual Sweepstakes cross country race, Canyon Crest Academy’s Katja Dunayevich was so far behind Temescal Canyon’s Megan Crum that she sometimes lost sight of her.

However, Dunayevich closed the gap very slowly. Just before he reached the final hill, he heard his coach, Andrew Corman, yelling at him.

“He told me I could win,” the Ravens senior said.

Dunayevich burned the last 300 meters of the track. He caught Crum with 100 meters to go and posted a winning time of 17 minutes, 39 seconds for Division 1-2 runners on the hilly 3-mile course.

“I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God,’ and my adrenaline really started to pump,” he said. “When I got to the Jumbotron leaderboard I saw that I had caught up to them and then I ran as fast as I could. I resisted the urge to use my energy to catch up early in the race and saved it for last.

“But when I got downhill (the last hill) I took off. My goal coming here was to finish in the top five. This is a huge boost to my confidence. “Last year both this meet and the state meet didn’t go well for me, but this year is different.”

He won by 2 seconds.

This was also a big day for Rancho Bernardo’s Camden Luecht, who finished second in the Division 1-2 Individual Sweepstakes. Luecht pushed the pace from the start but couldn’t stop Lancaster’s Isaiah McCorvey in the final half mile.

“I had planned to sit on a runner from (Whittier) La Serna, but when we started I realized she wasn’t in the race,” said Luecht, who ran in 15:20. “When we started the switchbacks, I decided to push it to see if I could get away because my coach had been stressing all week how to run downhill.

“At the bottom of the hill (about 2.5 miles into the race), I would say there were only three of us with a chance of winning. …

“When we got to the track my legs felt very heavy, but after all that work I wasn’t going to lose second place. I’m very pleased as my realistic goal is to be in the top three.”

Luecht was asked if he had a time target in the race.

“NO. Even with all the changes they made to the course, I didn’t really have time to think,” he said. “You don’t usually do that when the race starts.”

Elsewhere, the Del Norte girls, Mountain View St. They found themselves in the middle of the team race until the final mile, winning the D1-2 Team Draw 69-105 over St. Francis’ Nighthawks.

“Our No. 6 runner had to stop running here due to an injury,” said Emily Russo (18:20), who led Del Norte 4-5 with Eliza Hong (18:27). “We still hope to do well in the state.”

Since it was a new track, records were scattered everywhere.

La Jolla’s Chiara Dailey placed second Friday behind South Pasadena’s Abigail Errington (16:57). Dailey’s time of 17:06 was the second fastest of the entire weekend.

Trey Caldwell from Concord De La Salle broke the men’s record with a time of 14:46. He was the only runner to finish the race in under 15 minutes.

There are almost 100 different races at the meet itself. For runners like Torrey Pines’ Luka Trevino, it was an eye-opening experience.

Trevino competed in one of the freshman races earlier in the day and won in 16:48.

“I’ve been running since sixth grade and competing here was really fun and different,” Trevino said. “There’s a lot of energy here. I love running in the hills because I think it’s a real cross country race. It’s a new landscape and it’s very competitive.”

“But for me, I don’t like running in circles around the track and the longer the race the better. I really like the turnarounds here and how you have no idea what’s going to happen next.