Pirate women finish third at OEC track championships
COSTA MESA -- The Orange Coast College women's track and field team competed in the 2015 Orange Empire Conference Track and Field Championships on Friday and the Pirates finished in third place overall as several individuals earned spots at next week's Southern California Regionals.
Coast finished with 192 points, trailing only Riverside City College (313.50) and Fullerton (118) for the team title.
Despite no individual conference titles, Coast managed to put up several solid times and marks.
In the 400-meter hurdles, OCC's Hannah Heising battled Fullerton's Duong all the way to the finish line, but the times had Duong crossing the line at 1 minute, 3.58 seconds, just .01 ahead of Heisling (1:03.59).
Heising earned another runner-up time, joining Taylor Sims, Mycol Smith-Ray and Decontee Ayers in the 400 relay as the foursome clocked in with a time of 49.5 seconds. To cap off her well-rounded day, Heising also competed in the javelin and finished fifth with a mark of 81 feet, 2 inches.
Michaela Schaeffer competed in the triple jump and the freshman out of Edison HS took second overall with a jump of 35-6 1/2.
In the 400, Smith-Ray fought hard down to the finish line and finished second with a time of 1:01.03.
Other top performances from the Pirates came from Sims in the high jump (3rd, 4-11 1/2), the 400 hurdles (3rd, 1:05.46) and in the long jump (4th, 17-1 1/4) and Jenessa Reyes in the 1,500 (5th, 4:59.07) and 10,000 (4th, 43:16.58).
The aforementioned Southern California Regionals will begin with preliminary action on Saturday at 10 a.m. at Cerritos College, with finals taking place on Saturday, May 9 at Cerritos, also at 10 a.m.
