OCC women battle to second-place showing at OEC Track Championships

COSTA MESA -- Orange Coast College was the host of the 2016 Orange Empire Conference Track and Field Championships on Friday and once the final gun sounded, the Pirate women finished second overall with a team score of 220.50 points.

Riverside City College won the team title with 344.50 points, while Saddleback (84.50), Fullerton (50), Golden West 26.50) and Santa Ana (15) finished behind the Pirates.

The highlight for the Pirates came a week ago as the duo of Taylor Sims and Hannah Heising finished 1-2 in the hepathlon, with Sims taking the title with 3,947 points and Heising (3,556) taking second. Sims won five of the seven events against the rest of the OEC field, while Heising posted solid runner-up marks in four of the seven events.

Despite several RCC victories over the two week-prelims and finals, there were still several strong performances turned in by Orange Coast. Leading the way was the 110-meter hurdles, where the Pirates finished 1-2-3 in the race as Sims took home the title with a time of 15.05 seconds, followed by Mychal Robinson (15.85) and Heising (16.36). 

Sims and Heising finished 2-3 in the 400 hurdles, with Sims taking the silver medal with a time of 1:06.39 and Heising the bronze with a 1:06.89.

Lauren Delgadillo joined Sims as an OEC champion after winning the long jump with a mark of 17-feet, 5-inches, with Sims (17-feet) a close second.

In the triple jump, Coast missed the top of the medal podium, but took home the next four spots, led by Monica Ayala, who finished second with a jump of 34-5 3/4, followed by Jessica Cardenas (31-4 3/4), Fatemeh Javdi Tabarroki (31-2 3/4) and Azin Isfahani (29-6 3/4).

The Pirates will now prepare for the 2016 Southern California Regional Championships, held at Antelope Valley, beginning on Saturday at 9 a.m. with the prelims. The SoCal Finals will be on Saturday, May 14 at AVC, also at 9 a.m.

2016 OEC TRACK AND FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPS