Orange Coast College

Cross Country: OCC men finish second, women third at SoCal Championships

Monday, November 10, 2008

BAKERSFIELD -- The Orange Coast College men's and women's cross country teams each qualified for the upcoming State Championships with top-three team finishes at the Southern California Championships, held at the Kern County Soccer Park.

On the women's side, OCC finished third overall with a team score of 79 points, behind defending champion Glendale (68) and Southwestern (77).

Pirate sophomore Cassie Mitchell won the individual title, finishing the 5K course with a time of 17 minutes, 48.99 seconds, nearly 10 seconds ahead of runner-up Aurora Scott of Southwestern (17:58.55).

Defending state and SoCal champ Crystal Reed finished 27th overall (19:01.32) after a wrong turn on the course took her out of a commanding lead. When notified of the wrong turn, Reed had to turn around and retrace her route back to the correct trail, allowing several runners to get ahead of her. A solid effort down the stretch enabled Reed to pass several runners in the final mile to finish 27th.

All five scoring runners for the Pirates cracked the top-30, including top-20 finishes from Andrea Guerra (eighth, 18:26.34) and Margaret McDuffee (16th, 18:47.44). Janina Emery (30th, 19:03.18), Kimone Hewitt (32nd, 19:08.55) and Alexandra DeAvila (42nd, 19:24.48) round out the impressive times for Coast.

For the OCC men, five top-35 performances enabled the Pirates to finish second overall with 105 points, behind eventual champion San Bernardino Valley (52). San Diego Mesa (126) finished third.

Luis Gallardo was the top Coast runner, placing 10th with a four-mile time of 20:27.52, with teammate Pedro Saucedo (20:27.90) close behind in 11th.

The trio of Russell Westphal (21st, 20:40.95), Kirk Hunter (30th, 20:53.93) and Raul Torres (33rd, 20:56.22) round out the top-five for the Pirates, with other solid times turned in by Sergio Olivarrias (21:24.36) and Weston Hall (21:56.96).

The 2008 State Championships will take place on Saturday, Nov. 22 at Woodward Park in Fresno, beginning at 10 a.m. with the women's race and 11 a.m. with the men's race.