Last Friday, more than 37 teams competed in the Southern California Invitational at Mt. San Antonio College, and the men’s cross-country team represented EC well despite a number of small “hiccups” with a fifth place finish.
Freshmen runners David Cardona and Jose Lezama finished with a one-two punch of second and third respectively. Cardona finished with a time of 21:22, while Lezama finished at 21:41 despite battling a dry throat all day.
“I was really worried for the first 800 meters,” Lezama said. “I just wanted to stop. There’s no way you can go if your throat is dry.”
Despite the discomfort in this race, Lezama continues to produce, this race being his sixth top 10 finish of the season, and his third top three.
“There’s good days and bad days and I felt bad,” Lezama said. “I didn’t feel like I was 100 percent, but (despite my condition) I feel like I did pretty well.”
The men’s team has probably the best one-two combination of runners in the state with Lezama and Cardona, but coach Dean Lofgren doesn’t want to get ahead of himself.
“Individually, we don’t want to put too much pressure on anybody,” coach Dean Lofgren said. “But our two guys (Cardona and Lezama, are going to be breaking away from the pressure.”
Lofgren went on to mention that if Cardona had not been thinking in a strategic manner, conserving his energy for the upcoming conference championships, that he might have been able to run down first place finisher Dahir Mohammad of Southwestern College.
“David may have been able to catch this guy, but being an invitational, he chose not to kill himself,” Lofgren said. “Maybe (at the conference championships) he’ll dig in and run this guy down.”
The team’s usual third man, freshman Jimi Duffin, experienced a side cramp early on and struggled to the finish at 114th. Had Duffin, not experienced this cramp, things may have been different.
“We were OK,” Lofgren said. “Other teams in So Cal scoff at us, having never placed fifth in their history, but we know we’re so much better. Had Jimi not suffered a cramp, we could have placed second.”
Sophomore Rio Enomoto, the team’s usual fourth runner, held his ground as the third best, finishing in 47th place. Ryan Noro ran extremely well, finishing in 71st.
“Ryan ran the best race of his season,” Lofgren said. “He started conservatively and continued to move on up.”
Noah Lopez and Duffin rounded out the rest of the men’s group with Lopez finishing in 99th. For the men behind Cardona and Lezama, this race was a learning experience once again.
“We were talking about going out hard in the race early, and it caught up with us,” Lofgren said. With the conference championships in sight, Lofgren is comfortable and confident in its core group of runners. For Lezama, being part of a team is one of his keys to success.
“I feel more comfortable running with a team,” Lezama said. “We push each other during the race, we talk to each other, we say ‘Come on, let’s go quicker’, or ‘Slow down, we’re going too fast,’ It’s more comfortable to run with guys like David.”
Lofgren said the conference championships should be a showdown between EC and Mt. SAC, the two schools having gone back and forth three times now.
“These guys compete at the highest level,” Lofgren said. “They have such a drive to compete and to win.”
The women’s cross-country team mostly shut down due to illness and injury ran two women last Friday, with good results ensuing.
Rebecca Caracoza continues to prove herself as a leader among the women, finishing 25th with a time of 19:46 this is a two minute improvement from her time two years ago on the same course.
Illness has plagued the team so they are to return soon.
“We’re hoping to have everyone back by the conference meet (on Halloween),” Lofgren said. “We’ll have to make a judgment call as we