Men’s Cross Country Preview: Expectations Sky High for Tiger’s State Title Hunt
The Riverside City College men's cross country team regained the Orange Empire Conference (OEC) Championship crown this past season after falling short two years ago and being held from competition in 2020 due to the pandemic. Last season they came back strong by placing third overall in Southern Regional competition and fourth overall at the State Championships. They look to keep the trend moving in an upward direction.
"Last year was awesome and I was so proud of my team," said Head Coach Jim McCarron, the reigning OEC Coach of the Year. "We missed the state podium by two points with a young team and they just got better every meet. They peaked at the right time."
The Tigers begin their season at the University of Redlands Invitational this Saturday at 8 am. They will continue on to face more four-year competition at the Coyote Invitational hosted by CSU San Bernardino. They will round out September action with a pair of two-year meets featuring the Golden West Invitational and the Southern California Preview in Bakersfield, CA.
October is a true test highlighted by the OEC Finals at the end of the month. They will prepare with the Manny Bautista Mesa Invitational followed by Division I challengers at the John Elders Titan Invitational hosted by CSU Fullerton. Riverside snapped the tape as a team at CSUF's last meet. After that, it is a race to the hardware in regional and state competition.
"The philosophy is get out and follow a race plan. If they follow race plans throughout the year, that is what we are looking for. It's all about learning, growing, falling down and getting back up."
Riverside has a core group of returners back to lead the pack, but a gang of freshman will look to keep up pace as well.
"The good news is we got a good amount of guys back from that team," said McCarron when asked about his current squad. "We lost some good ones, but we got three or four guys back which is neat. We have a couple freshman that are going to be good for us."
Leading the herd is sophomore Raen Reyes who was one of the Tiger's top performers from last season. He saw six top-15 finishes which included a trio of top 10 finishes. His best finish was at the OEC Finals after slightly missing the podium and coming in fourth place with a time of 22:21.3. His best time was his inaugural campaign at the Redlands Invitational with a 20:13.6 time placing 10th overall. He had four times that landed 21 minutes or below to pace the returners.
Sophomore Gavyn Condit returns after a strong first year highlighted by a pair of top-10 finishes. The first one came at the vanguard Invitational after clocking a time of 25:23.8 to place sixth. He followed with an eighth place showing at the OEC Finals with a time of 22:45.1. He performed at a high level in postseason play with a 17th place mark at the Southern Regionals and a 23rd place finish at the State Championships.
"Along with Reyes and Condit, I would easily add Kyle Reden," said McCarron with emphasis. "He was our sixth or seventh man at state last year. He was in and out last year and still made it in our top seven. Those three will be deadly together."
When you are talking about cross country at the two-year level, Riverside is always early in the conversation. The Tigers plan to continue to be the highlight of the conversation.
"Our goal is to always win the conference championship. We want to win that every year and then SoCal is to qualify for State. State is the main goal and be in the game, then go for it."
The last time the Tigers hoisted a championship trophy was in 2016. They plan to break that streak behind dedication and commitment to the team.
"We will be fighting for a state championship when it is all said and done. The goal is always to win"