Posted: Sep 24, 2019

Mt. SAC, LA Harbor In The Mix For SCC Women's Cross Country Top Spot

Pasadena City's Olivia Ruiz (332) briefly had the lead early on at the SoCal Preview Meet.

The dominating year turned in last season by the Los Angeles Harbor College women's cross country team in winning the CCCAA state championship behind CCCSIA State Women's Athlete of the Year and meet individual champion Brenda Rosales Coria will likely not be matched in 2019. The South Coast Conference has won the last two state team titles including Mt. San Antonio in 2017, but the mini streak may end this year.

Mt. SAC is currently the highest-ranked team from the SCC at #4 while LA Harbor at #6 is the only other conference school in the 5CTCA Top 14 SoCal Rankings released today.

At the Sept. 13 SoCal Preview Meet held at Mission Bay, Mt. SAC placed fourth while Harbor was fifth out of 23 scoring teams. Long Beach City was 15th, Cerritos 18th and Pasadena City placed 19th. From the Western State Conference, Glendale College won the team title and is clearly the top SoCal team this year and rated #1 in the poll.

Individually, Harbor's Marai Atanacio appears to be the SCC's top racer after being one of six runners throughout the Southland to break 20 minutes. Atanacio placed sixth with a time of 19:44.8 over the 5-kilometer course. Mt. SAC's Sadie Encinas placed 17th for the top Mounties finish. Encinas was an All-American last year who took 13th place at the state meet.

The top placings by other SCC schools were turned in by Pasadena's Olivia Ruiz (25th), El Camino's Carmen Hernandez (40th), Long Beach's Dasani Zavala (43rd), Cerritos' Valeria Guerra (53rd), Compton's Graciel Gomez (149th), and East Los Angeles' Luzbeth Montoya (182nd).

Expect Mt. SAC and LA Harbor to battle it out for the conference title at the SCC Championships to held at a site to be announced on Nov. 1.