Continuing to practice and either finishing up or facing conference games, El Camino Colleges’ cross-country, basketball and football teams are continuing to practice improving on their skills.

“Men’s cross-country did very well, overall we had a solid strong season,” said men’s and women’s cross-country coach Lofgren of the team that finished sixth place at the state championships.

Men’s cross-country was led by freshman David Cardona who had “an outstanding season” and finished second individually in the field of 250 distance runners and was a south coast conference athlete of the year.

Freshman Jose Lazama was another student who stood out, winning third in conference, second in southern California championships, where the team finished fifth overall.

“We had a very young team with only two returning players,” Logren said of the women’s cross-country team

Women’s cross country finished sixth in the south coast conference championships but did not advance as a team to southern California regional’s although some players did individually like state championships individual qualifier, Rebecca Curcoza.

Sometimes you have more of a rebuilding year more so than others, this was more of a rebuilding year but its still a solid group of women said Lofgren.

“We have a lot of new athletes this year. We lost a lot of kids in between the spring, summer and fall. Typically we play during the summer and improve for the fall. We’re trying to gel together because this group hasn’t really played together at all,” men’s basketball coach Fenison said.

“There are games we should have won but as we get better hopefully we won’t make the same mistakes,” said Fenison about the men’s basketball team record of 2 and 4.

Isaiah Jenkins has been recruited to go to LMU and is playing well for the team right now said Fenison, he’s averaging seven points a game.

“Julian Camper works hard and we’re excited to have him. We’re looking forward to having him help us win a few games,” Fenison said.
The guys are working harder and herder to get to know each other. The players are still making the transition from high school and learning how to play at a different level said Fenison.

Men’s football team had a strong start and played really well the first seven games. They lost a couple of games they wouldn’t typically lose but they were to turnovers said coach Featherstone.

We created twelve turnovers in the first seven games but then we gave up twelve turnovers in the last three of the four last games however we struggled in the latter part of the season coach Featherstone said.

We had a fun year together and we ended up 8 and 3, some people never end up eight and three-so we have to live with that and rebuild for next year and hope we don’t have the same problem in 2010 said coach Featherstone.

For being a young team with only four returning players, women’s basketball has strong cooperation and fluidity.

“Its only the beginning,” said player Kendra Zindler, about the team that has won three of the four games they’ve had this semester.

Women’s basketball is still playing preseason games and conference play starts in the middle of January.

I really like this group; we have a chance to be really good. For sure were going to be in the thick of the battle for conference championship. We lost one game by three points and if we were to go back, we’d definitely win it. We can’t be distracted by the record,” said coach Shaw.

“We have the first year players stepping up, some of them are starting to push the sophomores for more and more playing time,” says Featherstone of the team that’s profoundly developing.