by Enrique Gutiérrez
Staff Writer
Freshmen power is felt in both the University of La Verne men’s and women’s cross country teams. Three freshmen and a junior made the highlight of the season qualifying to the NCAA division III West Regionals.
The Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Championships took place Saturday at Prado Park in Chino, awarding a spot in the Regionals meet to the top-20 finishers.
Freshman Stephanie Pedroza, junior Leti Arroyo and freshman Erika Schatz finished in 10th, 13th and 15th place respectively, obtaining their ticket to the next step. All of them beat the 21 minute mark in the 5k race.
On the men’s side, freshman Ryan Scott-Acosta was the lone runner to earn a spot for the regionals meet. Scott-Acosta finished the race in 26th place but was promoted as the 20th qualified competitor because the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps team had six extra runners finishing before Scott-Acosta.
Only the first seven finishers of each team are allocated points toward their teams.
Neither the men’s team nor the women’s team was able to accomplish the goal they pursued from the beginning of the season – finishing among the top-three teams of the conference.
Despite that, head coach Pat Widolff said he saw improvement on the team. “Our goal was to finish in the top-three,” said Widolff. “But I was happy with the season. We are a lot better than we’ve ever been.”
The men finished seventh out of that many teams with 170 points accumulated. Scott-Acosta led the Leopards, running 8Km in 29:24:10.
The second Leopard to cross the finish line was freshman Brandon Becerra who completed the route awarding 30 points to La Verne.
Redlands finished in sixth with 169 points while Claremont dominated placing its first seven runners in the top 15, scoring 37 total points.
The Stags average time was 27:29.8, four minutes faster than the Leopards average of 31:53.7.
The women’s team was closer to finishing among the best three teams.
With 99 points the Leopards were fourth out of six teams.
Pedroza, the top ULV finisher, completed the race in 20:20.50, a minute behind CMS sophomore Andrea Haver who won the race in 19:21.60.
The West Regionals will be held in Portland, Ore. Saturday November 13.
“Anything can happen,” Widolff said noting that it will take a “big improvement” for any the Leopards to make it to Nationals.
“We don’t know what to expect,” Widolff said. “We are just happy to go there.”
