Orange Coast College

Several OCC tracksters qualify for SoCal finals

Monday, May 08, 2006

WALNUT - The Orange Coast College men's and women's track teams will be well represented at this weekend's Southern California Finals following their performances at the prelimaries on Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College.
While the bread and butter of the program -- the OCC distance runners -- continued to impress, head coach John Knox was pleased to see other Pirates step and rise to the occasion.
"In the past, our distance would carry us, but this year, it's been our throwers," Knox said. "Lots of people performed exceptionally well last weekend and it'll be a strong showing for us at the finals."
Two OCC athletes -- Lance Gonzales (decathalon) and Gabby Santana (10K run) -- have already qualified for the State Meet, scheduled for May 19-20 in Bakersfield.
"Lance actually hurt his knee at the Conference Meet, but he came back and finished strong in several events, including a personal-best in the 110-meter hurdles (15.1 seconds)," Knox said.
Santana finshed fourth in the 10K with a state-qualifying time of 39 minutes, 27.2 seconds. She will also join teammates Jewel Butler and Araceli Huerta in the 5,000 finals on Friday.
Butler, Santana and Samantha Caldwell each qualified for the 1,500 finals. In addition, Caldwell posted a time of 2:24.4 to advance to the 800 finals.
Other OCC women to compete on Friday include Huerta and Mayra Munoz in the 3,000 Steeplechase, Kalli Ickes and Kimiko Ferrante in the javelin and Aabria Lipscomb in both the hammer throw and shot put.
On the men's side, the Pirate foursome of Chris Burbach, Scott Burbach, Cameron Clavin and Lance Gonzales all qualified for the javelin finals with impressive throws.
Clavin wasn't finished there. He also qualified in the hammer throw and discus.
Gonzales joined Clavin in the "triple-event club," qualifiying in the high jump and 110 hurdles.
Other Pirates to qualify for Saturday's finals include Drew Woods in the 800, Joel Guzman and Martin Bernard in the 5,000, Ignacio Perez in the long jump and Mike Occhino in the discus.
Complete results can be found at www.directathletics.com.
The SoCal finals will begin on Friday at 3 p.m. at Mt. San Antonio College.