Posted: Nov 19, 2023

Second Straight 3C2A Title For Mt. SAC Men's Cross Country

Mother Nature dumped a little water on the competition at the 3C2A Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships at Woodward Park in Fresno on Saturday morning, but the Mt. San Antonio College teams didn't let her rain on their parades as the Mounties swept both state team titles for the second consecutive year.

On the men's side, Jyden Schmid (19:58.60) of San Diego Mesa raced to the individual title on the 4-mile course, but Mt. SAC used a runner-up finish from Johnathon Zavala (20:09.3), a fifth-place showing from Jordan Galindo (20:23.7) and seventh place from Matthew Donis (20:29.2) to counter Shmid and third-place runner Victor Rosas (20:15.8) and edge the Olympians, 49-54.

"Today, we didn't know what was going to happen, if it was going to start pouring on the men's side," said Mt. San Antonio coach Daniel Ozan. "But we kept our cool and were patiently aggressive. That's a key for us in a majority of the races we compete in."

Mt. SAC and San Diego Mesa have built an exciting rivalry that has extended from the southern California into statewide competition.

"I love the rivalry," Ozan said. "I've known (San Diego Mesa head coach) Sean (Ricketts). We raced in high school, junior college and college together. It's a great rivalry to have and it's really, really fun. Obviously, it's stressful but it's fun every single time we compete."

The state championship was the fifth for Mt. San Antonio's and its fourth since 2017.

Other South Coast finishers included Alan Canales, 44th for El Camino, Tyler Villanueva 55th to top Cerritos, and Riki Moscoso 87th out of the 181 runners across the state participating.

(Some information and the quotes borrowed from Woody Wilk's 3C2A state article at 3C2Asports.org)