Angel arrived at Manteca High as a freshman with baseball aspirations.

He’ll leave as the school’s best distance runner.

The senior competed in the California Interscholastic Federation State Cross Country Championships for the second time last Saturday, setting another school record at Woodward Park in Fresno with a time of 15 minutes, 38.0 seconds. He played 26th out of 204 in the competitive Division II race.

Sierra junior Christian Gonzalez was the only other area athlete who qualified for the state meet. Also making a repeat appearance, Gonzalez took 63rd (16:05.6) in Division III.

Although Angel did not meet his goal of placing in the top 10, he was satisfied with his finish.

“Last year for the state meet, I had the worst cold ever,” Angel said. “I was really sick in that race, which was not ideal. This year, I felt pretty good. I felt I could have been faster, but what is done is done. I thought I gave a pretty good effort that day.”

Angel holds the 5-kilometer, 4-kilometer and 3-mile cross country records at Manteca.

For the season, he won the Valley Oak League Championships and took first in the Sac-Joaquin Section Sub-Section meet in Division II. He went on to place sixth in the SJS Championships.

Angel also earned individual titles in the Frogtown Invitational and Flame Invitational and was third in the Kim Duyst Invitational.

He’ll next compete in the Foot Locker West Regional this Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut.

“Overall, I’m proud of what I did this season,” Angel said. “I ran some pretty fast races, won a decent amount of them and made it to the state meet, which is all I can ask for.”

Angel has been offered scholarships from multiple NCAA Division-II programs, but may wait until the spring to decide where he wants to go. His objective now is to make the state meet for track. Last year, he took eighth in the SJS Finals with a personal record 4:19.53.

Angel started out running track for fun, after inadvertently missing a tryout day for baseball his freshman year. He stuck with it and began taking it seriously after his sophomore season.

“I enjoy running,” Angel said. “I’ve improved a lot and am a completely different runner than I was my freshman year. I’m thankful for all of my coaches (Paul Lyons, Alyssa Garcia, Trevor Crippen), who have always been there for me and helped me perform better as an athlete and as an individual.”