Orange Coast College

Pirate women again dominant in OEC preview

Friday, October 06, 2006

ORANGE - The Orange Coast College women's cross country team continues to validate the old theory that, "Sometimes, less is more."
Equipped with just six runners on the entire team, the Pirates continue to dominate the competition, winning Friday's Orange Empire Conference Preview Meet at Irvine Park.
With all six runners finishing in the top-eight places, the Pirates racked up a near-perfect meet score of 16 points. Runner-up Riverside was a distant second with 65 points, while Santiago Canyon (78 points) finished third.
Elda Hernandez earned the meet's fastest time, finishing the 5K course with a time of 19 minutes, 30.44 seconds.
Teammates Erendira Uriostegui (19:34.39), Kelly Oelschlager (20:06.97), and Kristin Glen (20:07.39) finished 2-3-4, respectively.
Riverside's Ana Mendoza ended the wave of orange across the finish line with a fifth-place time of 20:33.39, but OCC teammates Kimberly Jennings (20:44.78) and Claire Fleming (21:03.92) finished sixth and eighth to cap off the impressive performance.
The OEC preview was run in conjunction with the 18-team Howard Brubaker Invitational. With all the schools' times in the mix, again, it was Coast on top with 23 points. All six of the above-mentioned times for the Pirates were good enough to crack the top-15, with Hernandez's time still the best.
On the men's side, the Pirates showed solid improvements from the start of the season and finished second in the OEC Preview with 46 points, just three points behind Riverside's 43.
Ernesto Castaneda finished third with a four-mile time of 21:14.11. Nathaniel Mouzis placed sixth overall with a 21:41.01 and Martin Bernard also cracked the top-10 with an eighth-place mark of 21:41.80.
Other OCC times include Travis Foerster (21:52.64), Erik Lopez (22:29.95), Alfonso Silvas (22:59.32), Nick St. Andre (23:03.91), Eric Pettit (23:07.16), Erik Clark (23:56.88), Alex Drum (24:56.86), Osbaldo Riestra (25:22.40), Sean Connor (25:41.56) and Mario Guereca (30:11.00).
OCC will return to action on Oct. 21 at the Cal State Fullerton Invitational, beginning at 9 a.m.