WALNUT – Century senior Monserrat Santillan-Silva entered her first cross country meet as a sophomore in 2023.

Last year she finished 56th in the Division 4 championships race at the CIF Southern Section Finals.

On Saturday, Santillan-Silva became a CIF-SS champion.

Satillan-Silva won the Division 4 race with a time of 16 minutes, 43.3 seconds at the CIF-SS Championships at Mt. San Antonio College.

She finished 17 seconds ahead of JSerra’s Maya Pawowlicz, whose second-place finish helped JSerra cruise to its fourth straight CIF-SS girls cross country championship.

Santillan-Silva said her first cross country goal was to finish a race in under 18 minutes.

“I did better than that,” she said. “And I kept improving. That made me feel like I could do this. Seeing all the improvement made

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