Men’s and women’s cross country will be traveling to Woodley Park on Friday, Nov. 7 for the Southern California Championships.
If all goes well for the men and women, they will advance and go on to participate in the California Community College Athletics Association State Championship race.
The best 10 teams from the north and the south will participate with an addition of four teams from each region. If there are 25 individuals that place in the top 25 will qualify to race in the State Championships.
The team knows exactly what’s at stake for this meet and to be able to take part in the CCCAA State Championships.
Head Coach Bryan Ramos said, “This is a big meet. It’s a regional meet so all the south California teams that qualify for conference will be running here, definitely the competition will be top notch. It’s almost going to be a preview of state, just because the north only has two schools that can play a factor in the state meet. It’s the south schools that are the tough teams. It will also give us an outlook on how we will look for the state meet.”
Ramos says that this will be a test to see if his team has what it takes to run in playoffs and be contenders.
Along with how important this race is, there was a lot of preparations being done by both the men and the women.
Men’s team captain Anthony Lozano said, “We have been doing a lot of physical work such as speed work and we have finally been hitting the track, doing high-intensity workouts with low mileage. I think that definitely prepares us for the championship season because we want to be sharp and quick.”
With every physical work, there must be a mental work incorporated into it as well.
Women’s team captain Marylu Pulido said, “Mentally, I don’t think about the bad races I think about the good races that I’ve done and what I know I am capable of doing. I review the race in my head and how I want to run it, the strategy. I go over what girls I will run it with, or what girls will I run behind to pace me.”
The men and the women both have the right physical and mental work that they put into this race, and Coach Ramos had some good expectations to go with these aspects.
He had different expectations for each team.
“There’s definitely going to be a lot of competition, this is regionals and it’s important because it’s to see if we qualify for the state meet,” said Ramos. “For the women, we are fighting for a top three with five schools that are fighting for the top spots. If we run as a pack do what we have to do, we can definitely be up on the top three.”
Ramos acknowledges that there’s alot more competition for the men.
“There’s about nine schools that are fighting for the top three spots, but I’m really looking at our top two guys doing well individually, “said Ramos. “Our goal for the men are to qualify for the state meet. Anywhere in the top five are going to be great in the competition in South California.”
