Alexis Naucler and Edith Noriega | Viewpoints Staff
Nov. 13, 2014
Men’s cross-country
The Riverside City College men’s cross-country team will head to the State Championships Nov. 22 after finishing in eighth-place, with 246 points, at the Southern California Championships Nov. 7 at Woodley Park in Van Nuys.
Coming in first for the Tigers was Doug Negrete at 21 minutes and eight seconds, and was followed by Anthony Munoz at 21:21, in third place was Julio Martinez at 21:25, fourth place was Jeronimo Brito with a time of 21:42, and following very closely was Dennis Gonzalez with the same time.
“I am very pleased with how our guys have packed all season and have continued to run strong,” RCC head coach Jim McCarron.
“If they can run like they have been and keep a 25 second gap between our number one and number five runner we can be top 10 at the state championship.”
Women’s cross-country
The RCC women’s cross-country team posted a sixth place finish compiling 194 points only 10 points out of fourth place over the 3.1 miles course at the Southern California Regional Championships meet.
The Tigers punched in their golden ticket for the state championships meet at Woodward Park in Fresno California Nov. 22.
Rounding up the top spots at regionals: Glendale College winning the meet with 61 points, followed up by Mount San Antonio College (79 points), College of the Canyons (113 points), Cerritos College (184 points) and Southwestern College (187 points) to round out the top five.
Brianna Jacklin once again continues to lead the pack bettering her time by 25 seconds from running at the same course nearly a month ago.
The Tigers have steadily improved in their overall course time from one month ago according to the CCCAA rankings.
“We are looking forward to show all the work we are putting into these next two weeks,” runner Rebecca Morales said.
“We’re really focusing on our strengths this week doing lots of hills and speed workouts. At state we are going to really try to stick together again, sometimes its hard because we all have different abilities going up the hills.”
RCC head coach Damien Smith explained that the team needs to focus on closing packs to 30 seconds over the next two weeks could give them a shot on making the podium at state.
