The women’s cross country team placed third and the men’s team placed fourth to begin their championship season for the 2019 California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Cross Country Championships. The event was held at 9 a.m. Oct. 26 at Baywood Golf & Country Club in Arcata.
The women’s team finished third behind Chico State and Cal State East Bay in the 6-kilometer course out of 13 teams with a total time of 1hour, 55 minutes and 6 seconds and a final score of 101.
The team was led by senior Elizabeth Hernandez placing eighth out of 106 runners with a finishing time of 22:33.3, followed by sophomore Luz Garcia, placing 19th with a finishing time of 22:59.3.
“We had a plan to have our top five in the top 30 and I’d say we executed pretty well,” Hernandez said.
Garcia, who had been placing high throughout the regular season, said this championship season event was more challenging due to the course having more hills than flat ground.
“I think, overall we did pretty well because we’ve been working on sticking together as a pack. And I think we executed that a lot better than we had in previous races, but I think that there’s also room for improvement,”Garcia said. “This course was definitely a challenge for all of us just because of how many hills there were, but I think our coach did a very good job in training us for this race.”
The men’s team placed fourth in the 8-kilometer course out of nine teams, with a total time of 2:08:49 and a final score of 86. The team was led by senior Eamon Smythe, who placed eighth out of 84 runners and with a finishing time of 22:33.3, surpassing his teammates by 12 places. Smythe is happy about his performance and wants to push himself to be a high-level contender throughout the championship season.
“Overall, I’m pretty happy. I placed pretty well. I felt more comfortable for most of the race,” Smythe said. He is finishing up his third Cal Poly Pomona cross country season.
“There’s nothing like the real intense part of the season, so everything else was kind of just sharpening up the tools (and) figuring it all out,” he said. “Now its like, OK, this is where the racing matters. This is how we need to do things.”
Cross country associate head coach Wes Ashford is proud of his runners and plans to better prepare them for the next competition. Ashford only wants to see improvements from his runners, as the Broncos move throughout the championship season.
“Well there’s some positive things to (the performances) and of course it’s something we need to continue on getting better. But overall we’re heading in the right direction,” Ashford said. “We’re getting better and competing better every race and we’re improving; that’s the main thing.”
Chico State blew past the competition, placing first on both the women’s and men’s side.
The Wildcats had four of their women finish in the top five and four of their men finish in the top 10. The women’s team scored 23 points with a team time of 1:51:18, and the men’s team maintained a score of 33 points with a team time of 2:05:34.
At the Broncos’ next race, the 2019 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II West Region Championship, the men will move up in distance to 10 kilometers. The national qualifying race, hosted by Western Oregon University, will be held at the Ash Creek Preserve in Monmouth, Oregon, at 11 a.m. Nov. 9.