by Lori Cruz
Staff Writer
Pursuing personal goals and building on its endurance, the University of La Verne‘s cross country team traveled to San Diego on Saturday for its last competition of the 1995 season.
The races were the culmination of all the runners’ training: the NCAA Regionals.
Two races were run at UC San Diego with nearly 200 men and women competitors representing 14 schools in the NCAA’s west region.
The races were the 8,000-meter run for men, which translates to five miles, and a 5,000-meter run that the women participated in, which is just over three miles.
The Leos’ top finishers were sophomore William Donald and freshman Stephanie Lesniak.
Donald ran the 8,000 in 29:05, finishing 37th out of 80 athletes.
Lesniak finished in 56th place out of 100 runners in the 5,000, with a time of 22:25.
Overall, the men finished ninth out of the 10 teams competing and the women finished 11th out of 14 teams.
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps won the women’s division. UC San Diego won the competition for the men.
Seven men and seven women ran for ULV in San Diego in the team’s final meet of the season.
Despite the lackluster result, Head Coach Pat Widolff had no complaints of his team.
“I was pleased with them. They will be excellent runners. Their futures are bright,” said Widolff.
For the women, sophomore Veronica Mendez finished behind Lesniak in the 5,000. She beat her best time of the season by one minute. She finished the race with a time of 22:34.
In the men’s division, junior Gilbert Gomez finished behind Donald for ULV with a time of 30:48. Next was sophomore Brian Ward at 31:16. Freshman Jeremy Gonzales finished with a time of 31:30 and junior Jose Barba completed the course with a time of 32:05.
Junior Julia Meiss had a time of 22:46, finishing third for the Leos.
Behind her was freshman Lynn Merrill with a time of 23:25, followed by freshman Eren Piceno, whose time was 23:37. Other times for the Leos included junior Beverly Wilson, 24:24; and freshman Kenia Magallanes, 25:01.
The athletes trained by running “six days a week. Some days they run eight miles a day, some days they run four and other days they do some intervals,” said Widolff.
“They will be running on their own until track starts in January. Most will probably run track [in the spring],” he said.
