September 20, 2023
On a mild but overcast day, the Los Angeles Mission College cross country teams participated in their second competition of the season at El Dorado Park in Long Beach for the Southern California Championship Preview this past Friday. Facing most of Southern California's best, they demonstrated a marked improvement from their first race of the season and overall provided competitive marks.
On the men's side, the team managed to place 18 out of the 27 schools that competed in the traditional community college race of 4 miles. For Head Coach Steve Laguna, it was a very encouraging performance, as he noted that "Given a couple of our guys had been coming back from some illness and injury, it was a respectable performance. In light of that, our team believes they can accomplish even greater feats moving forward".
In a field of 263 runners, the men were led by Ryan Adrayan, placing 88th with a personal record (PR) time of 22 minutes 36 seconds (22:36), with Anthony Gomez not far behind with a time of 23:04 placing him at 113, and JC Solanoguerra with a time of 23:53 and a place of 142 to round out the top 3 for LAMC. With Adrayan already owing the third fastest time for the current LAMC top twenty record book, his improvement moved him within 21 seconds of the next fastest spot held by former LAMC and two-time state championship qualifier Dylan Atwater, with Gomez and Solanoguerra moving into the 3rd and 4th spots respectively. Runners Aaron Garcia, Adam Moreira, Nathan Campos, Anthony Jauregui, Brian Salvador, and Miguel Campos rounded the rest of the field for the Eagles men.
On the women's side, racing the 5K (3.1 miles) distance, Isis Mora paced the lady Eagles by placing 86th out of 168 runners with a time of 23:26. The time put her into the 10th spot of the LAMC women's record book. For the women as a whole, for Coach Laguna, "It was an accomplishment to be able to field a scoring team after several years of not having more than a few bodies. For a number of the women, it was their first competitive race ever, and to see them go out and brave the competition was very satisfying. They have shown tremendous improvement, and I look forward to seeing them continue to move in that direction". Runners Alejandra Valenzuela, Jae'Lyn Boatner, Isabela Zavala, Lauren Lascon, and Michel Hurtado rounded out the rest of the field for the Lady Eagles.
The Eagle's next race will be at the Conference Preview at Oxnard College on September 29th. Go Eagles!