Pirate men earn SoCal trip with solid performance at OEC XC Championships
MISSION VIEJO -- The Orange Coast College men's cross country team earned a trip to Friday's Southern California Regionals after a solid performance at Thursday's Orange Empire Conference Cross Country Championships, held at Oso Viejo Park.
The Pirates kept together and had all five runners finish in the top-30 (point-wise) for a team total of 123 points. Riverside won the team title with 20 points, followed by Santa Ana (59) and Saddleback (71). Fullerton finished fifth overall with 126 points, while Golden West placed sixth overall with 176 points.
Sophomore Hector Leon was OCC's fastest runner on the four-mile course, finishing 11th overall with a time of 22 minutes, 3.92 seconds.
From there, the depth of the Pirates showed as the foursome of Oscar Gatica (23:50.88), Colin Takushi (23:56.57), Zachary Dignan (24:17.24) and Victor Bucio (24:20.73) all came to the finish line less than 30 seconds apart from each other, earning low points for OCC.
Other strong times for the Pirates were turned in by the foursome of Sebastian Chaves (25:07.57), Noah Holguin (25:16.32), Joe Patlan (26:10.38) and Gerardo Orbe (26:37.29).
With their performance on Thursday, the Pirates earned a trip to Santa Clarita's Central Park to compete in the Southern California Regional Championships, which will begin on Friday at 10 a.m.
