By Jacob Rodriguez, Oct. 1, 2024
Cal Poly Pomona’s men and women cross-country teams placed 10th and 15th in the 43rd annual University of California, Riverside Invitational Saturday, Sept. 21.
Six Broncos from the No.-21-ranked men’s team set personal bests at the invitational to place 10th out of 26 other teams, the second-highest finish among Division II schools.
Sophomore Juan Ramos placed 61st with a time of 24:22.5, his first 8k under 25 minutes and the 17th fastest time in program history.
“I learned a lot from our first race of the season what works and doesn’t work, and I wanted to apply that for this race,” said Ramos. “I took a different approach at the start of the race where I was more conservative, so I can finish off strong.”
Ramos stuck with the group for the first half of the race to conserve his stamina for the second half, pushing toward the finish line to place as high as possible for the team.
“He stepped up well for us today,” said head coach Chris Bradford about Ramos’ performance. “He has been a solid contributor for us, had a huge PR and was our lead guy across the line today. It just shows what he is capable of going forward.”
Senior Leandro Candray followed closely behind in 64th place and senior Evan Franco finished 72nd with a personal best of 24:20.8, more than 50 seconds faster than his first-place finish at the Coyote Challenge Sept. 7.
“I think we are moving in a really great direction,” said Ramos. “This race we just had, we finish in a pretty tight pack, and if we can move together for the rest of the season, we’ll be really powerful come November.”
The women’s team finished 15th out of 25 teams at the invitational with an average time of 21:25, the second-fastest average among Division II schools.
Three Broncos finished within the top 100 and nine Broncos set personal bests. Junior Vivian Martinez finished in 47th place with a time of 20.58.8, marking the second-fastest time in program history in the 6k.
Martinez said she journaled about her goals to maintain a good headspace outside of practice prior to the race.
“I talked to the coaches a lot more, going into depth about how I’m preparing for this race and getting their reassures that I’m fit for this race,” said Martinez. “Differentiating from track and cross-country was one of the conversations I had with the coach during track. It’s testing more of your fitness rather than cross country, which is more about one’s mentality.”
Senior Paige Moore finished 74th with a personal best of 21:21.2 and sophomore Jade Kingston followed behind in 76th place with a time of 21:23.2, both entering the top 25 in program history.
“We tried to take a different mental tactic going into the race about how we were going to set ourselves up,” said Bradford. “We were trying to be a lot more patient and let the race play out rather than challenging it early, and I think it was a positive result because of that.”
CPP men’s and women’s cross-country will travel to Texas for the Dallas Baptist University, Old Glory Gallop Saturday, Oct. 5.
Photos courtesy of Megan Sanders