by Chrissy Zehrbach
Assistant Editor
The University of La Verne men’s cross country team and two members of the ULV women’s team will move on to compete in NCAA Division III West Region Tournament following their performances in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championships Saturday.
The men’s team finished the 8,000 meter run at Prado Park in Chino with 66 points, placing them in third behind Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (22) and Pomona-Pitzer (46). The race winner, Pat McGrail from CMS, finished the race with a time of 22:45.67.
The Leopards’ third place finish marks the team’s highest finish ever at the SCIAC Championships.
“The men ran really well,” said head coach Pat Widolff. “I was really excited about their performance as a team.”
Sophomore Cecilio Barrera was the top finisher for the Leopards. With a time of 26:30.85, Barrera placed fourth out of 68 runners.
Following Barrera for La Verne was junior Frank Huerta in 27:39.39 for a tenth place finish.
Barrera and Huerta were honored as First Team All SCIAC for their race times. Junior Jose Jimenez (27:52.16) and freshman Aaron Hurtado (28:11.59) were honored as Second Team All SCIAC for finishing 13th and 17th, respectively.
“The course wasn’t that tough, but it was exciting because it was conference championships,” Barrera said. “There was good competition.”
Sophomore Kelly Wood (28:45.04), freshmen Josh Martin (29:27.70) and Joshua Abbott (29:56.08) also contributed competitive times that propelled the team to a regional berth.
“Guys like Frank and Kelly really stepped it up today and ran well,” Barrera said.
After a competitive season, the men finished in third place in SCIAC.
“This year’s been real fun because we’ve got a good team,” Barrera said.
“This is the best men’s team we’ve ever had,” assistant coach Faust Obeso said.
The women’s team, unfortunately, only had four girls competing in their 6,000 meter run Saturday.
“We just didn’t have enough for a whole team,” Widolff said.
The team was unable to score as a whole without five runners but fared well as individuals.
“We couldn’t score as a team, but we did it for ourselves,” said freshman Rheana Trejo.
Recent races for the women have been only 5,000 meters. The extra 1,000 meters proved to be a challenge at Saturday’s race.
“I liked the course; it was just really long,” Trejo said.
“It was a different experience; the extra .6 (miles) was challenging,” added junior Akia Hasan.
Occidental won the women’s race with 30 points. The top individual finisher was Angela Jacquez from CMS, who recorded a race time of 22:45.67.
Crossing the finish line first for the Leopards was freshman Alexis Candelaria. Finishing 11th out of 88 racers, Candelaria had a regional qualifying race time of 24:11.39 and was placed on Second Team All SCIAC.
Also qualifying for regionals was sophomore Amby Sarabia. Sarabia, who placed 21st, finishing the race in 25:00.95.
“Alexis and Amby put in a lot of hard work,” Trejo said.
Although the team recorded an incomplete for the meet, they still finished seventh in SCIAC for the season.
The NCAA West Regional will be hosted by ULV and will take place at 9 a.m. on Nov. 16 at Prado Park in Chino.
Results from regionals will determine which teams and individual runners will advance to compete in the NCAA Division III Championships Nov. 23 at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn.
