FRESNO — It was business as usual for La Jolla’s Chiara Dailey, who captured her third consecutive state Division 4 cross country title, the first San Diegan to accomplish that feat.

Not so much so for Eastlake’s Jaelyn Williams, who stunned a high-quality Division 1 field to win her first state crown over Woodward Park’s 3.1-mile course.

Dailey wasted no time, jumping right into the lead and clocking a 5-minute, 9-second mile before cruising to a 28-second victory in 16:52.7 on a mostly overcast day. She won by 28 seconds.

“I wanted to win because this is the last time I’ll compete on this course,” said Dailey, who, like Williams, will attend Stanford in the fall. “Oh, I’ll be here for the state meet to cheer on my brothers. It’s a Thanksgiving tradition. I tried to run faster, but it’s difficult without someone pushing you, so I had to push myself. But the competition has gotten so much better now.”

Proof of that came earlier when Irvine’s Summer Wilson set a course record, winning Division 2 in 16:20.0—10 seconds better than Malibu’s Claudia Lane ran in 2017.

Now, Dailey will have another decision to make.

The Vikings senior has been offered a “golden ticket” to compete in the Brooks Nationals, which means she can attend the Nike Nationals next weekend if she wants or take a week off to prepare for Brooks.

Williams has said she’ll run in Oregon this coming weekend at the Nike Nationals and hopes to get a “golden ticket” of her own to qualify for Brooks.

The difference is this time she’s going to Nike as the state champion after using the lone hill on the course to jump into the lead over defending champion Braelyn Coombs of Corona Santiago and nationally-rated Millie Bayles of Trabuco Hills.

It was a sweet win for Williams after finishing fourth as a freshman and sophomore. She was injured a year ago.

Perhaps as a portent, the sun poked through the clouds for her race.

“This is really special,” said Williams. “This makes all the work I’ve put in the last four yearsworth it,” said Williams. “I haven’t had much luck, I’ve sacrificed with a lot of pain.”

Williams, Cooms and Bayles battled through the first mile in 4:23.3 and went around the lake where they disappeared from view en route to attacking the steep but short hill. The next time spectators saw them, Williams had opened sizeable lead and of the three, looked the most determined.

Over the final mile, she pulled away to win by a whopping 29 seconds.

“I just had to trust in God and give it all I’ve got,” said Williams. “This was great.”

Elsewhere, the highly anticipated battle for gold in Division 5 went to Lick-Wilmerding’s EllaMogannam, who placed second a year ago.

Christian junior Elliana Patterson was passed in the final steps to place third (17:17.6), one spot ahead of Francis Parker’s Ari Llorens (17:24.4) and four in front of Ayanna Hickey of Bishop’s (17:57.0).

Point Loma’s girls earned a spot on the victory stand after Kelly McIntyre (20 th place) and Isabella Ramos (23rd) led the Pointers to a third-place finish in Division 2.