After winning its second victory this season at the Irvine Invitational Saturday, the women’s cross country team will continue to train hard to get into better shape for the Mt.SAC Invitational Friday.
The Mt.SAC Invitational is expected to be a big race with about 30 teams coming together from all over Southern California and has significant meaning because it is the same course where the Southern California Championships will be held.
“I think virtually everybody in Southern California will run to get familiar with the course, so, it will be very competitive,” coach Dean Lofgren said.
The team will run without its No.4 runner Jennifer Morrison because she has to attend a chemistry class lab.
“Potentially, it will affect the score a little bit, but it doesn’t hurt as much because we are so tight,” Lofgren said.
Although the team will run without Morrison, it is looking forward to the upcoming race.
“I’m pretty excited to run that race because I’ve ran there probably at least more than ten times when I was in high school, so I know the course pretty well,” Becky Cherry said.
Orange Coast is currently ranked No.1 in the state and El Camino, Mt. SAC, Riverside and Ventura are ranked No.2.
“It’s close at the present time. In a championship meet down the road, it could go any direction,” Lofgren said. “We hope to continue developing and continue to inch away from them in the championship meets.”
At the 3.2-mile course at Irvine Regional Park, the Warriors took first place out of 14 teams with 62 points and edged out Mt.SAC and Riverside with a two- point difference.
“We locked in the win down the last quarter mile stretch,” Lofgren said.
The team’s No.1 runner Heather Rosas not only finished first for the team but for the entire meet, with the time 19:33.
“Rosas pretty much led from start to finish and looked very confident and strong,” Lofgren said.
Rosas was followed by Christina Lara of Mt. SAC, who took second place at 19:43 and Rose Serna of Southwestern, who finished third at 19:44.
“We were a little more separated from number one to number five, but that may be because Rosas was working so hard to get away Christine Lara from Mt. SAC,” Lofgren said.
Behind Rosas were Cherry, who finished seventh overall at 20:54; Janeth Tostado placed 15th at 21:38; Morrison took 19th at 21:45; Evelyn Lopez crossed 20th at 21:52; Cora Webber finished 22nd at 21:57; Betty Cortez took 26th at 22:15; Dennise Warnecke placed 27th at 22:16; Jessica Hernandez finished 33rd at 22:41; Valarie Tucker crossed 41st at 22:59 and Lindsey Brown took 56th at 24:13.
Morrison said that the team’s win came from its hard and solid training they had since the beginning of the season.”We had been doing really hard to keep our team sound.”
Irvine Invitational Women Team Results
1. El Camino
2. Tied Mt. SAC and Riverside
4. Southwestern
5. Pasadena City
6. Rio Hondo
7. Fullerton
8. Santa Ana
9. Saddleback
10. Long Beach
11. Santa Canyon
12. Victor Valley
13. L.A. City
14. Golden West
