By Paola Palacios

Joshua Silva has helped the Riverside City College men’s cross country team win the California Community College Athletics Association State Championship for the first time in 22 years.

“This season as a whole has been really good,” Silva said.

Silva, who is a Corona native, is one of many that helped the Tigers reach this accomplishment. He won the Orange Empire Conference Athlete of the year and is the OEC cross country champion.

“I feel like I did good this season,” Silva said. “I set some goals for myself at the beginning. I wanted to break 25 minutes in the 8K and 20 minutes in the four mile.”

Along with his personal record,  Silva had set a goal with the rest of his cross country team to win state.

“We won conference, we won state, but we didn’t win SoCal but it doesn’t matter because we got the ring.”

Silva is a team leader and has motivated his team by taking them on runs that they did not expect to go on.

“Throughout the season I would always tell the guys, ‘Come on let’s go do this run’,” he said. “There’s a run in Corona that is called Riverwalk that has a flat or hill run. When we would get to that area where you choose flat or hill I will make them run hills to prepare them for state.”

Silva has won All- American in both cross country and track and field since his freshmen year at RCC and has a 3.6 GPA and has multiple universities lined up.

“I’ve made up my mind and I want to go to a Division I school, but still not sure which one,” he said.

By Kaleb Demissie and Paola Palacios

Once again the Riverside City College women’s water polo team had another stellar season with a 30-3 overall and 7-1 in the Orange Empire Conference, but this time they finished their season with a state title under their belt.

In addition to that the team had three of their athletes called to the All-OEC First Team and another named to the second team. Out of those four names one stands out in particular and that is sophomore Emily Martin.

Martin was not only named All-OEC First Team she was also named by OEC co-Most Valuable Player, sharing the honor with a player from Fullerton College. Martin lead the Tigers in scores and is also a one of the RCC’s team captain.

“It’s really exciting, as a captain I try to do my best and try to come out of my comfort zone,” Martin said.      

Martin has accomplished a lot in her two years at RCC originating from Yucaipa High School, she was named All American and an All State player two years in a row by the California Community College Athletic Association.

“It’s exciting,” Martin said. “Its cool coming from somewhere small like Yucaipa and coming here to RCC and progressing and getting better is something really cool.”

Martin, who has a GPA of over a 3.0 has been looking at Division I schools such as UC Santa Barbara, San Diego State and Concordia University, as her time at RCC begins to come to an end and will embark on a new journey into division I water polo team.

Although Martin is unclear at this point where she’ll be attending one thing will be certain, she will make a tremendous impact wherever she decides to go.