It has been quite some time since the men’s cross country team has been able to compete as a group because of multiple injuries to its runners. Tomorrow, the team finally gets the chance to show its depth.
After competing as a semi-healthy group, the men finished in second place behind Mt. San Antonio College at the South Coast Conference championship at Columbia Park in Torrance.
The men were once again led by sophomore runner Steven Calise, who dominated the race by finishing in first place.
Even though the team finished second, coach Dean Lofgren was happy but not satisfied knowing the men could have finished in first.
“Not to take away anything from Mt. SAC, but we feel like we should have been better,” Lofgren said. “But you have got to hand it to (Mt. SAC), they are really good. They came prepared.”
EC could not pull off a first place finish because many of the Warrior runners were not grouped as close as many would have liked.
Aside from Rio Enomoto (eighth) and Alex Gorney (10th) finishing in the top 10, the next runners to finish after them were Noah Lopez (18th), Joey Bianchi (21st), Daniel Varone (22nd), John Flores (29th) and Aaron Brown (30th). Lofgren said the distance of the runners after Gorney really hurt EC’s chance of winning the race.
“We can’t say we’re disappointed because finishing second is a heck of an accomplishment,” Lofgren said. “But the way we grouped hurt us more than anything with the distance of the runners after (Gorney).”
The second place finish qualifies the Warriors for the Southern California Championship round. In order to win the race, all of the runners on the team will have to bring their ‘A’ game.
Brown said he wasn’t satisfied with his individual performance but he wants to make sure that he won’t repeat his mistakes from last Friday.
“During the conference championship, I ran too hard in the beginning,” Brown said. “I was actually up there with (Calise) in the beginning but I just ran out of gas and faded away. That hurt my team as far as scores went and I will make sure not to do that again.”
With previous injuries to Varone and Lopez, they had not been able to compete as a group.
Lofgren was always pondering what it would be like if all of the runners were healthy. The result was a second place finish. Flores said with a healthy squad, their depth can beat anybody and they have a great chance in their last two races.
“If we bring our ‘A’ game, we could beat just about anybody,” Flores said. “Even though we didn’t run our best race with the way we grouped toward the middle of the pack, we still had a chance to be in first place. Imagine if we all had our best race, our depth is amazing and our best is yet to come.”
For the SoCal championships on Friday in Bakersfield, the top 14 teams advance to the state championship round.
While other teams are content on just qualifying, Lofgren wants the men to come in and win the competition.
He wants his team to leave a lasting impression and to have a psychological edge on the other teams. With Mt. SAC poised to win, Lofgren believes that his team will have to be at its best to win tomorrow.
“Even though (Brown) came out too fast, and based on the way we grouped, we still finished second so we are not that far off,” Lofgren said. “We want to have a good race (tomorrow) and show everyone our depth and how good we are so that we leave a good impression, gain an edge psychologically heading into state (championship round).”
With Calise finishing in first along with Gorney and Enomoto rounding out the top 10, Lofgren said he believes the men will have to run better as a team in order to finish well.
He said these individual performances, especially by Calise, are great, but the grouping of the other runners hurt the team on the scoreboard.
“It’s an individual sport, but it is also a team sport more than anything,” Lofgren said. “We need to run better as a team because we all know that we are better than the way we finished last Friday.”
The men have already competed in Bakersfield in early October for the SoCal preview, so Lofgren knows what to expect tomorrow at the SoCal championship. He said this is a great time to capitalize and get a victory.
“We know some teams won’t go hard this weekend because they just want to qualify,” Lofgren said. “But not us, we are going hard. We are going to compete because not only do we want to qualify, but we also want to win.”
