by Tadzio Garcia
The men’s cross country team placed ninth at the 66th Annual Mt. San Antonio College Cross Country Invitational last weekend on a course designed by Husky Head Coach Louis Ramirez.
“This meet is the world’s largest cross country invitational and will host over 27,000 competitors over the three days of competition,” a Mt. SAC official said last Friday.
Laura Aceves placed third for the women’s team, behind Yesenia Silva of College of the Sequoias, the top women’s runner in the state, and Rachel Naumann of Moorpark College, who placed first and second respectively.
“The hills in the course were hard for me… this identified that I need to work on hills more than I do (now),” Aceves said.
“(In a) tune-up for the South Coast Conference finals in two weeks, both teams compete at the Biola Invitational on Saturday. ELAC will have to run hard to respond to four-year university competition in order to do well,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez trains both teams each week according to the course they will run. In the late ‘90s, ELAC hosted the SCC finals at Mt. SAC because their home course at Legg Lake Park in El Monte was under irrigation construction. Ramirez spent two months redesigning the famous Mt. SAC men’s course “because it (the men’s race) had a history of many runners getting lost in the back and front ends,” Ramirez said.
Southwestern College won the men’s race.
The men’s team upset Los Angeles Valley College by six points to place ninth.
Gonzalo Ceja, who has battled illness for some weeks, missed the Invitational Men’s Top-15 Team by 2.5 seconds placing 18th. Aceves was named to the women’s Mt. SAC Invitational Top-15 team with her third place finish.
“The girls did all right. We were looking for a little bit of improvement, which we got with some personal records,” Ramirez said.
“Aceves ran a personal record as did Brianna Lewis, Lupe Yanez, Melissa Preciado, Sandy Bautista and, Ivonne Rodriguez and Cindy Escamilla,” Assistant Coach David Loera said.
Host Mt. SAC won the women’s race. ELAC placed No. 13 overall, 120 points behind Santa Ana College. “
Santa Ana placed No. 8 and will probably advance to the state finals. ELAC needs to pick up 100 points to advance. If Ruby Padilla can run 19:50 (13 seconds faster), that’s a 60-point swing for us,” Ramirez said.
ELAC’s final scoring runner, in the No. 5 position, also needs to improve. “Many girls have been improving at the pace we anticipated and are in position to take ELAC’s No. 5 spot with a time that would be a 40-point swing,” Loera said.