After finishing in first place at the Ventura Invitational, the men’s cross country team felt good about heading into their race at the Orange Coast Classic on Saturday.
The results were satisfying, as the men’s team finished in fifth place. Coming in first place was San Bernardino College. Mt. San Antonio College (2nd), Orange Coast (3rd) and Riverside (4th) rounded out the pack.
Coach Dean Lofgren wasn’t upset, but he also wasn’t satisfied with the results.
“It’s not life or death. It’s very early into the season, and we have many more races to go, we just have to get better and work harder,” Lofgren said.
Although sophomore runner Steven Calise earned first place, he eclipsed Humberto Sanchez’s 1995 OC classic record of 20:13 with a record time of 20:08. Lofgren said the team still could have done better.
“Obviously, (Calisle) ran a heck of a race. That’s one of the best I’ve seen him run but, as a team, yes we could have done better,” Lofgren said.
The next meet is Saturday at the Foothill Invitational in Chino.
Lofgren said he believes he will need to do some experimenting.
“For these races, we use them for developmental and experimental purposes. We might try Rio Enomoto and have him go out a little quicker and have Aaron Brown pace himself until the end. We never know. We’ll see how it goes for this week’s practices,” Lofgren said.
Lofgren also said that he wasn’t disappointed, because not everyone ran the best that they could and he knew the teams they ran against were good teams.
“The top four teams ahead of us Saturday are really great teams. You have Mt. SAC, San Bernardino, Orange Coast, so we knew we had our work cut out for ourselves,” Lofgren said.
The men will also meet the same teams that finished ahead of them, which will have Lofgren more prepared for the next race.
“These teams, San Bernardino, Mt. SAC, we’ll see them again, so we might try something different, and we’ll be more prepared,” Lofgren said.
Although the team finished fifth overall, Gorney, who finished thirteenth, was very disappointed, and he thought they could have been better.
“Im disappointed in myself, because I trained so hard for this race and I know I could’ve finished in the top 10. But we didn’t run very well as a team aside from(Calise),” Gorney said.
Gorney also thought this race was a measuring stick because he knew they were facing some of the best teams.
“This was kind of a race to see where we stack up, because San Bernardino, Mt. SAC, all those teams are good, but we just didn’t run our best race,” Gorney said.
Looking for a solution of what they could have done better as a team, Gorney thinks that they could have done better grouping.
“I don’t know, after the first mile, I kind of sensed it was over, we could have had better grouping, and we could have had a closer pack,” Gorney said.
Even though Gorney is disappointed in himself and in the overall finish of the team, he is very optimistic for the rest of the season.
“This race will just motivate me to train even harder, and run my best all the time, because I know I could have finished in a higher spot and I hope the rest of my teammates feel the same,” Gorney said.
With a first place finish, many would think that Calise would be happy and satisfied.
“I’m happy that I finished first place, but it’s all about the team and how we finish as a group,” Calise said.
Calisle also believes that the team has a deep squad and that the team will continue to get better as the season progresses.
“We have a really deep squad of runners this year and with Noah Lopez (returning from injury), that should help us out a lot,” Calise said.
Gorney feels confident that the team will be better prepared for tomorrow’s meet in Chino.
“I expect us to work hard in this week’s practice so come Saturday, we will be prepared and be much better,” Gorney said.
