Tigers Take Fifth Place at SoCals, Advance to State Meet Nov. 21
SAN DIEGO -- Posting its highest regional finish this decade, the Riverside City College (RCC) Tigers women's cross country team posted a fifth-place finish at the Southern California Championships (SoCals) Friday morning (Nov. 6) at Mission Bay Park in San Diego and will advance to the state championship meet in two weeks.
Riverside, which placed seventh in 2014, ran the 3.1-mile (5.0 kilometer) race to fifth place (168 points). Glendale College won the race (35 points), followed by second-place College of the Canyons (115), third-place San Diego Mesa (131) and fourth-place Cerritos (139).
The Tigers are currently ranked No. 4 in the state.
Other teams of note, including Orange Empire Conference (OEC) members, finishing in the top ten were sixth-place Mt. San Antonio (200 points), seventh-place Orange Coast College (202) and eighth-place Saddleback College (300). OEC member Santa Ana College was 15th (441 points), 19th-place Santiago Canyon College (496) and 26th-place Fullerton College (680).
To practically no one's surprise, Aminat Olowora of Southwestern blazed through the course with a phenomenal time of 17:02.0, nearly TWO minutes faster than the runner-up.
RCC was led by that runner-up, sophomore Brianna Jacklin (Riverside / M.L. King, Jr. HS '14), who was second overall (18:57.3), followed by frosh Natalie Vaughn (Corona / Santiago HS '15), who was 15th overall (19:43.7), sophomore Crystal Tejeda (Riverside / Norte Vista HS '14), who was 33rd overall (20:10.5), frosh Megan Reed (Riverside / Poly HS '15), who was 59th overall (20:43.7), frosh Alexis Louis (Riverside / Poly HS '15), who was 72nd (67th) overall (21:03.1), sophomore Liliana Vargas (Eastvale / Eleanor Roosevelt HS '14), who was 89th (83rd) overall (21:27.4), and sophomore Morgan Tapia (Eastvale / Eleanor Roosevelt HS '14), who was 90th (84th) overall (21:27.9).
The Tigers will next participate at the California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) Championships on Saturday, Nov. 21, at Woodward Park in Fresno at 9 a.m.
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