Injuries, State Cut Affects Men's Cross Country At SoCal Championships

Despite four runners placing in the top 100, the Pasadena City College men's cross country team had to settle for 19th place overall at the Southern California Championships held Nov. 8 at Mission Bay in San Diego. The Lancers were able to only qualify one racer for the upcoming CCCAA State Championships in Fresno on Nov. 23.

All season, the team had relied on such top runners as Asa Barton, Giovanni Guajardo and even their recent top South Coast Conference finisher Alec Fernandez, but it was Mohammad Halim who for the first time was PCC's top runner as he made his SoCal run over the 4-mile course pay off in a Lancers best 83rd place in 23:16.2. Halim, a freshman from Arcadia High, made the cut for the state race, but the season ended for Guajardo (90th, 23:21.7), Barton (95th, 23:26.2) and Fernandez (100th, 23:31). 

"Unfortunately, our top few runners all got injured before the conference finals meet. What hurts for them is that we're talking seconds as to how close they were to qualifying for state," said PCC head coach Innocent Egbunike. "Our four top racers came in as a pack toward the finish line. We could have qualified as a team for state if all were healthy. We are still very happy for Halim, who ran a great race."

The Lancers still had their highest SoCal finish in the last three seasons. They last qualified as a team at the state meet back in 2016. 

A healthy Barton had run a 22:51.9 in 52nd place at the SoCal Preview meet over the same Mission Bay course on Sept. 13, a time that easily would have allowed him to qualify for state. Halim improved by an impressive 37 seconds from his finish at the SoCal Preview race. Guajardo also made a big jump 47 seconds from that race but in the end was just five seconds from making the state individual cut. 

Also at the SoCal Finals, Jose Campos ran to 139th place (24:43), Jose Fuentes 152nd (25:15) and Jordan Jiang was 163rd (25:55). 

San Diego Mesa won the SoCal team title and SCC champion Mt. San Antonio placed second. The individual champion was Mesa's Stefen Rasmuson in 20:49.2.