GCC women take third, men sixth at Coyote Invite; Women ranked No. 1 in southern California

The Glendale Cross Country teams competed at their fifth race of the season this past Saturday at Cal State San Bernardino, which featured a few competitive Division 2 and Division 3 schools. The women were the first to race, and they continued to make a statement at races this year. They would run to a third-place team finish with a total of 86 points, behind only the Nationally ranked Division 3 CMS team and the Division 2 Concordia University team. The Lady Vaqueros would be led by Phoebe Forsyth (18:08.9) who would take 5th overall. Yajaira Calderon (18:13.3) would follow Forsyth with a 9th place finish. Rounding out the top five scoring runners would be Jamie Levin (18:20.2) who would come in 13th, Bianca Biel (19:00.0) who took 34th, and Lydia Forsyth (19:00.8) with a 35th place finish. Those five would be followed Viviana Martin Del Campo who took 73rd in a time of 20:04.3 and Rosa Silva – who would be competing in her first race of the season – and taking 98th in a time of 21:00.2. All the top seven runners ran a PR, except for Rosa Silva who hadn't run a race yet. Four of the top seven, and three of the top five, would have a PR of over a minute. The other two would be just short of a minute PR.

The men would also have a very impressive day, given the changes in circumstances of the race. The race would originally have two men's races – one for the 8K (about 5 miles) and a 4-mile race that the Vaqueros would normally take part in. Instead, both races were combined into one 8K race. The men last ran an 8k at the Mark Covert Classic, but they still finished 6th overall. Kevin Keller would be back as the number one runner for the Vaqueros with a 13th place finish in a time of 24:54.7. Marvin Guardado would follow Keller with a 15th place finish in a time of 25:00.4. They were followed by Usiel Ulloa (25:47.8) who came in 44th, Albert Serrano (25:58.7) who took 48th, and Ameer Mohammed (26:26.8) who would come in at 68th to round out the top five scoring runners. Those five would be followed by Abraham Martinez who took 84th in a time of 27:03.7 and Spencer Geck who came in 94th in a time of 27:29.2 rounding out the top seven. Four of the top seven would also PR by over a minute, with Usiel Ulloa having the biggest PR of 2:09. The other three would have a PR not far under a minute. With two runners returning from injuries, the men will be looking to move up in the coming weeks. The Vaqueros will have an upcoming Bye week. Their next race will be October 4th as Glendale will host the WSC Preview race at Legg Lake in the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area.

Thanks to Assistant Coach Matthew Osherow for providing this information