By Ana Rocha
SUCCESS
By Ana Rocha
On the weekend of May 7 the Riverside Community College was at Saddleback at the Southern California Championship, only one step away from the state meet. More than 20 team members were competing to move on to the state championship.Out of a total of 39 women’s track teams, RCC finished 14th. Out of all the women who traveled to Saddleback for these regional finals, only Kim Avila accumulated enough points to qualify for state. Both her shot put performance with a mark of 40-0.25, placing her in fourth and the discus with 143-1, placing her in second qualified her for state.”The pleasant surprise was she threw seven feet farther in the discus than she’s thrown before,” women’s head coach Mike Barbee said.All of the women had great performances, most of them placing one through 14, but because of the way places are scored, they weren’t able to make it to state. Amy Gilsen and Natasha Montoya were only one place away from qualifying for state.”I was really happy with the performances,” Barbee said.Even though a lot of the women aren’t going to be going to finals on the weekend of May 13 at San Mateo, there is a great satisfaction that they made it this far. They also set three college records.”All our girls ran their best to get this far,” Barbee said.Stephanie Fematt set the latest school record at the regional finals. She ran the 3,000m steeplechase on a time of 12:10.36.The men’s team also had great performances, but as a team was able to conquer the Southern California Regionals Championship. They won first place with a total of 88 points leaving Mt. Sac in second place with 84.5 points.”They were only 3.5 points behind us,” men’s head coach Scott Parks said.As a team, RCC has won the state championship four times but had never before won the regional finals.”That’s the first time RCC has ever won the regionals in men’s track,” Parks said.Jared Ware, Adam Medina and Mario Hughley are only a few individuals who were able to obtain enough points to qualify for state.With these outstanding performances, both as a team and as individuals the track team is looking forward to state championships.”I think it’s gonna be a close contest, but we’re in good contention for top two or three and maybe even win it this week,” Parks said.Like all of the participators from both the men’s and women’s teams, the individuals who made it to state tried their best to make it to state, some actually made it while others didn’t. Any one person can have the greatest trainer and practice day after day, but there is never a guarantee as to who will make it to the next meet.