CdM, led by seniors Melanie Powers, Kristina Funahashi and Marisa Cummings, scored 76 points, besting section champ Orange Lutheran, which had 81 points.
Last week, the Sea Kings finished three points behind the Lancers.
“They were mad at me all week,” Sumner said in a telephone interview. “All I’ve been doing is delivering the message. Quite frankly I was a little hard on them. But if you want to be a championship team you have to find out what the weaknesses are. You have to look at yourself. You need to get to it. They came through. These girls worked so hard and they didn’t have a shot. They made that shot and created it. They got closer and closer.
“Today was tougher because Orange Lutheran knew what was coming and they had a plan and their plan was to beat CdM.”
But in Fresno, the Sea Kings proved to be unbeatable.
Powers led the way, finishing in third in 17 minutes, 56 seconds on the 5,000-meter course (3.2 miles).
Funahashi, who also competes in track and field, broke through with her personal best, proving to be the key runner for the Sea Kings. She came in seventh in 18:18.
“We were all really disappointed last week,” said Funahashi, a former tennis player who just began competing in cross country last year. “We really knew we could win the state championship. [Sumner] was a little bit hard on us. This week we left it all on the course and did our best.”
Cummings, who will join her older sister, Sarah, and run at Princeton University next year, finished 13th in 18:27. She is one of the team’s six seniors who started talking about a repeat after they won the state title last year.
