Dynasty Continues For Mounties Women's Cross Country--3 State Titles In A Row
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 titles for the second consecutive year.
The Mt. San Antonio women won for the 12th time overall, fifth time since 2014, and captured a remarkable third consecutive state team championship.
Mt. SAC didn't have their first women's finisher until Aariana Amezcua in ninth place (18:45.1), but the Mounties packed well after that, placing all five scoring racers among the top 25 over the 3.1 mile course. That was enough to score 86 team points and outdistance runner-up San Diego Mesa College which had the individual champion in Alexis Noble (17:54.7). The Olympians finished with 119 points.
Mt. SAC coach Daniel Ozan said the women's team had to pay attention to the rain forecast.
"I think coming in we wanted to get a little more conservative," Ozan said. "We knew that the course could've potentially been a little bit wet but we were a little bit conservative, worked our way up the last mile-and-a-half and capitalized on the last 800 meters."
After Amezcua, All-State racers from Mt. SAC included Shandy Moore (17th, 19:02.28), Natalyn Membreno (18th, 19:06.98), and Ingrid Tamayo (20th, 19:12.16),
El Camino, which finished in 10th place as a team, scored two All-State First Team runners in Ami Jacobson, fourth (18:12.00) and Sequoia Gonzales, fifth, in 18:14.50. Cerritos was ninth as a team, led by Megan Feitz in 19th overall. A total of 167 women competed from across the state with the South Coast placing seven in the top 20.
(Some information and the quotes borrowed from Woody Wilk's 3C2A state article at 3C2Asports.org)