by Max Zänker
Staff Writer
The University of La Verne cross country team is right on time with its preparation for the upcoming season. The Leopards took first place in the overall team score at the 13th annual Whittier Invitational Tournament Saturday at Craig Regional Park in Fullerton.
This result was the summation of the men’s third place and the women’s sixth place finish on the 3.7 mile track.
Head coach Pat Widolff was satisfied with his runners.
“I saw some good results out there, but not all of our main competitors started and the most important thing for us is to know where we have to work on,” he said.
Widolff said the next step to improve the team’s efficiency is closing the gaps in the women’s setup to make them run closer together.
For the men, he pledges some extra hours to improve the team’s fitness and consistency.
“Some of them need more work and longer runs, but we’re just in the middle of our training,” he said.
Widolff has a clear goal for the men’s team, he grants them chances to settle among the top teams for conference leadership, shoulder by shoulder with their main competitors from Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Pomona-Pitzer, neither of which were present Craig Regional Park.
The main responsibility will be up to team captain Cecilio Barrera. The junior led his team to third place by crossing the finish line after the unusually short distance of 3.7 miles in 11th place with a time of 21:20.52.
“I’m happy with the team’s result and excited about the season. We have good chances to win the conference, going to the regionals and maybe even the nationals,” Barrera said.
Crossing the line next for ULV were Frank Huerta in 15th (21:50.75), Angel Guerrero (21:57.53) and Jose Jimenez (22:00.39), in 16th and 17th place, respectively.
The women’s team was led by sophomore Alexis Candelaria, replacing senior Akia Hasan, who is still suffering from a knee injury.
Candelaria finished the 3.7 miles in 5th place with a time of 22:55.83.
A “nice surprise” for Widolff was senior Gloria Gomez’ performance.
Gomez was the team’s second runner to arrive and took 11th place in a time of 26:18.87.
Next was freshman Jessica Varney, stopping the clock at 29:00.08 as 33rd finisher.
Heading for a middle position in the conference, the women’s team practices six days a week, absolving six miles runs and working to integrate the six new athletes into the staff of six returners.
“I think, so far, that we have improved our team with some very good runners,” Widolff said, looking forward optimistically to his 12th season as head coach.
The Leopards compete in the Riverside Invitational tomorrow at 9 a.m. in Riverside
