Orange Coast College

Men's and women's teams qualify for State Meet

Friday, November 03, 2006

ANTELOPE VALLEY - While it actually may come as a surprise to see the Orange Coast College women's cross country team not atop a meet's standings, head coach Marco Ochoa knows and understands the big picture.
"While it may have been nice to win a regional title today, our main objective is to get to the State Meet and we qualified for that today," Ochoa said. "It wasn't our best performance this time, but we've got two weeks to get ready for State and that's when our best performance will be needed."
The women, shorthanded with the absence of Kelly Oelschlager (flu), still managed a fourth-place finish with a team total of 164 points. Glendale (85) won the event, snapping the Pirates' string of five regional titles in a row.
Elda Hernandez led the Pirates with a seventh-place time of 20 minutes, 24.25 seconds. Erendira Uriostegui finished the 5K course with an 11th-place time of 20:38.83, while the combination of Kristin Glen (21:28.53), Kimberly Jennings (21:29.84) and Claire Fleming (22:34.22) finished 37th, 38th and 74th respectively.
On the men's side, the Pirates finished ninth overall with 236 points, behind regional champion San Bernardino Valley's winning total of 118.
Two top-20 finishes highlighted the four-mile race for OCC, led by Martin Bernard (13th, 22:50.71) and Ernesto Castaneda (15th, 22:55.53).
Nathaniel Mouzis finished 40th with a time of 23:31.35, while Travis Foerster (24:21.18), Alfonso Silvas (24:36.36), Nick St. Andre (24:39.83) and Erik Lopez (26:01.19) complete the Pirates' times.
Next up for both teams is a trip to Woodward Park in Fresno for the State Championships. The OCC women will attempt to successfully defend their state title, while the men will attempt to claim their fifth all-time state crown, their first since 2004.