Improved Times For Men's Cross Country, 21st At SoCal Preview

The Southern California Preview meet is a first look at all the region's teams together in one setting. While the Pasadena City College men's cross country team finished 21st out of 27 teams, the Lancers saw improvement in all of their runners.

PCC took part in the meet held at El Dorado East Regional Park in Long Beach on Friday with Christopher Camarena posting the Lancers fastest time in 118th place overall at 23 minutes, 12.9 seconds over the 4-mile course. That's his best time thus far this season by a full minute.

The rest of the harrier squad followed suit in posting their top times with Umar Saleem in 154th (24:08), Winsor Harmon in 173rd (24:45), Jaime Loera at 194th (25:59.7), and Colt Reichman in 199th (26:04) all scoring. Loera made a 3-minute improvement while Reichman up his game by 2:47. 

Eriqlee Adame ran his first race and placed at #206 in 26:23. Aghasi Melkonyan crossed in 230th (28:25). 

"To have so many of our guys pick up their pace against all the top runners in SoCal was gratifying," said PCC head coach Innocent Egbunike. "Christopher has been our most consistent racer, but it was good to see the big improvements for especially Jaime and Colt. This is an encouraging sign moving forward."

In the South Coast Conference team breakdown, Cerritos placed seventh, El Camino ninth, Long Beach City 14th, and behind PCC were LA Harbor in 23rd, East Los Angeles in 24th and Compton in 27th. Mt. San Antonio chose not to participate.

On Friday, Sept. 22, the Lancers return to the course at the Golden West Invitational at Central Park in Huntington Beach. Race time is 10:15 a.m.