Mark Covert Classic Recap
The Glendale Cross Country team took part in the Mark Covert Classic race at Carbon Canyon Park in Fullerton Saturday. This race would feature teams and individual runners not at the community college level, including NCAA Division 1 schools, such as Long Beach State and Loyola Marymount University. The Lady Vaqueros would fare well among the field of just under 200 runners as the team placed 11th, scoring a total of 285 points. Given the extremely tough Division 1 competition, those 285 points would be the top Junior College team at this race. They would go on to defeat the powerhouse women's Mt. Sac team by 146 points. Jamie Levin would lead the way with a 43rd place finish and a time of 18:28.9, followed by Yajaira Calderon who took 55th with a time of 19:38.7 and Phoebe Forsyth who would take 56th with a time of 19:41.1. Rounding up the top 5 scoring finishers would be Lydia Forsyth (20:19.5) who went on to finish 86th, and Bianca Bell (20:36.0) who would place 96th.
On the men's side, it wouldn't be a conventional JC course the Vaqueros would typically run. The men normally run a 4-mile race, but since this race includes Division 1 runners, they would run across an 8k (about a 5 mile) course. The men would finish a very respectable 12th with a total of 350 points. Once again, the standout runner for the Men would be Kevin Keller, who would come in at 38th of 221 runners, and he would do so with a time of 25:59.5. Keller finished this race in 27:29.1 last season, so he would PR by a minute and a half. Keller was followed by 57th place finisher Marvin Guardado (26:25.6), 96th place finisher Albert Serrano (27:17.9), 103rd place finisher Ameer Mohammed (27:24.4), and finally Abraham Martinez who would take 120th and finish in a time of 27:49.7, to round off the top 5 scoring runners. The Men and Women will travel this upcoming weekend up North to Fresno for the Fresno City College Invitational Saturday morning. There they will preview the course for the State Championship race in November.