PCC Women's Cross Country: Top 10 Runners From 2000-2020

With two decades in the history books since the start of the 21st century, Pasadena City College Athletics will go through sport by sport as we look back at the Top 10 performers for every sport in the 2000s as determined by the sports information office. Today, we rank the Top 10 from Lancers women's cross country.

Here are the Top 10 in reverse order:

10. Tie Angelica Martinez, 2001, and Ashley Medina, 2014: Martinez raced to third place at the '01 South Coast Conference Championships in helping the Lancers take third place as a team with her 20 minute, 35-second time in the 5-kilometer race. She placed 26th at the Southern California Regional meet (team was 11th) and then was 45th at the CCCAA State Meet (20:33). PCC took 16th as a team at state. Medina, the team's top runner in '14 from Arroyo High, was 10th for All-SCC at the conference finals (19:23.7) held locally at Hahamongna Watershed Park. She placed 50th at the state meet in 19:33.71 competed over a 3-mile course. PCC was 17th as a team. In the regular season, Medina was sixth at the Foothill Invitational and eighth at the Rio Hondo Classic. 

9. Aurea Santana, 2001: Racing to sixth (20:48) at the SCC Championships, Santana helped the Lancers to third place but her 45th at the SoCal meet was again second banana to teammate Martinez (see #10) while the pair helped PCC score 11th in the region. But at the state meet, Santana saved her best race for last as she ran a 20:11 mark for 29th overall in defeating her talented teammate by 22 seconds. The Lancers closed the year 16th at state.

8. Tansica Sunkamaneevongse, 2013: An Arcadia High product, Sunkamaneevongse ran to 12th at the SCC Championships (20:13) on a team that placed four Lancers in the top 20 but had to settle for fourth place (lost tiebreaker for third with Cerritos). After a modest 46th at the SoCal meet, She later took 35th as the best-scoring Lancer at the state meet in a time of 19:22.9 as PCC grabbed 14th overall. During the regular season, she was the top Lancer with fifth place finishes at the Rio Hondo Classic and Foothill Invitational. 

7. Brenda Grate, 2013: Grate, from Burbank's Burroughs High, was beaten by her teammate Sunkamaneevongse at the state meet by just .13 of a second (36th place, 19:23.12) after being PCC's best runner at the conference meet (ninth, 19:38) and at SoCal (37th) as the Lancers were a solid 10th in region. While Both Grate and Sunkameneevongse each had memorable seasons, ironically it was teammate Christina Shamirian who had the most top PCC finishes in four of the team's meets. But Shamirian battled through an injury that left her in 74th place at the state meet. 

6. Olivia Ruiz, 2019: The most recent Lancer and a student-athlete expected to return for her sophomore season some time in 2021, Ruiz had an outstanding freshman campaign as PCC's top racer in all nine of the team's meets. A local product of San Marino High, Ruiz was seventh at the Cerritos Invitational, 11th at the Ventura Invitational, 12th at the Golden West Classic, 18th at the Brubaker Invitational, and 25th at the SoCal Preview Meet. She really turned up her performances for the big 3 at the end as she scored fifth place at the South Coast Championships (22:22.9), then a superb 19th at the SoCal Regionals (20:29.2). At the CCCAA Championships, Ruiz placed 33rd overall at 19:56 over 3.1 miles Fresno Woodward Park course. 

Olivia Ruiz

5. Elizabeth Lyons, 2010-2011: Sometimes big things come in little packages. That is the case of Lyons, who at under 5-feet in height and barely 100 pounds, became the leader of PCC's best cross country team of the 2000s during a spectacular 2011 season. The sophomore from Rosemead High emerged midway through that year by first taking sixth overall at the Brubaker Invitational, then scoring ninth at the SCC Championships and leading PCC to its best conference finish in 10 years at third place. From Rosemead High, Lyons wasn't finished as she ran a personal best 19:30 for 46th at the SoCal Championships on an Ontario 5K course where she shaved off 90 seconds from her previous best time. The team placed 13th. Then at the state meet, wearing stylish pink high socks, she again paced PCC with a 19:47 time for 53rd overall. More importantly, the Lancers scored 10th place as a team for the program's best state finish since 1996. Lyons parlayed her success into a scholarship to Azusa Pacific University as she went on to be a 2-time, All-PacWest Conference harrier. 

Elizabeth Lyons

4. Franceska Millanponce, 2015-2016: A product of Temple City High, Millanponce went from good to fantastic from her freshman to sophomore seasons. As a rookie, she just missed earning All-SCC taking 15th place (22:42) as the Lancers best runner at the conference finals. She then took 82nd at SoCal and 107th at state. As a sophomore, Millanponce turned into a star. She started 2016 by placing 13th at the Ventura Invitational as she placed by behind another PCC racer. That was the last time she didn't top Pasadena's runners as she placed ninth at the Palomar Invitiational, then a strong 33rd at the SoCal Preview Meet, then second overall in a small field to help the Lancers win the Santiago Canyon Invite. She excelled over the 3-mile course at the South Coast Championships where she placed third in a swift 18:48 time. Millanponce bettered her SoCal Preview mark at the SoCal Championships at 19:40 for 26th. Finally at the state meet, the sophomore ran 19:45 for 55th place. 

Franceska Millanponce

3. Silavy Sin, 2000: Sin established herself as one of the state's top cross country racers and PCC's gold standard to open the 21st century. Sin placed fifth at the SCC Championships with an 18:44 mark, which is the second fastest run by a PCC athlete ever over a 3-mile course (held at Mt. San Antonio College), as she led the Lancers to a third place team finish. She ran to a 25th place (20:06) at the SoCal Championships as the team scored 13th place. Finally at the state meet, Sin was 23rd overall with a 19:34 mark while Pasadena was 14th as a team. Earlier in the year, Sin won the Ventura Invitational and helped the Lancers to the team title in that event, was ninth (team third) at the Golden West Classic, and scored 16th at the Irvine Invite. 

2. Diane Lombardi, 2011-2012: From Crescenta Valley High, Lombardi established her strong racing over both of her PCC seasons. As a freshman, she was the team's second strongest performer after Lyons (#5 on the list) in helping PCC earn third in conference, 13th in region, and 10th in the state. She just missed making All-SCC in 15th place, then 59th overall at the SoCal finals (19:48.5), and a respectable 56th at the state meet (19:50). She had been the team's top runner in their opening two meets before Lyons made her move. Returning for the 2012 season, Lombardi really excelled as she placed fourth at the Brubaker Invite (team second place), ninth with a scorching 18:57 at the Mt. SAC Invitational (team seventh), and made it All-SCC with a ninth place (20:58) over a 5K course at Los Angeles Griffith Park. An injury hampered her finish at SoCal, but she more than made up for that with a strong push at the CCCAA Championships with a 19:34 time in 42nd place. It was Lombardi's accomplishments over the two years that gave her the nod for her high ranking on this 2000s list. 

Diane Lombardi

 1. Tracee van der Wyk, 2009-2010: If not for LA Trade Tech freshman sensation Danielle Low, van der Wyk would have completed the Triple Crown of Cross Country during her sophomore season for the Lancers in 2010. Van der Wyk was Alydar to Low's Affirmed as PCC's racer placed second to Low each of the South Coast Conference Championships, the SoCal meet and CCCAA State Championships. Van der Wyk set PCC records for her times in all three events. At the conference finals, she raced 18 minutes, 20 seconds over the 3-mile course at Mt. San Antonio College, then she was one of just two racers to break the 19-minute mark at SoCal's East Mission Bay 5-kilometer course in San Diego at 18:54. Finally at the state meet, van der Wyk closed out a remarkable PCC cross country career with her second place, the only Lancer ever to race under 18 minutes over the Fresno Woodward Park 3.1 mile course. She raced 17:57.40, a time good enough to win the state title in 13 other years since the finals were competed regularly in Fresno going back to 1992. Low won at 17:38. As great a year as Tracee had in 2010, she recorded easily the second-best season of any Lancer as a freshman in 2009. That year, van der Wyk, from Temple City High, placed third at the SCC meet in 18:49, scored sixth at SoCal (an exact duplicate of her 2010 SCC mark also at Mt. SAC--18:20), and then was a strong fourth place in 18:08.11 at the state meet. An accomplished middle distance runner in track and field, van der Wyk got her personal gold finally when she won the 1,500 meters at the 2011 state championships--the first time ever a PCC women's athlete won a track-only event at the CCCAA finals. Twice named the PCC Women's Athlete of the Year in 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, van der Wyk remains the Lancers' greatest women's cross country racer. She was still racing competitively for Cal Coast Track Club as of last year and in 2018 was a USATF National Championships Qualifier in the 800 meters.