Cross Country Places Well at Golden West Invite

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. --- The El Camino College cross country squad went out for its second meet of the season on Friday morning for the Golden West Invite at Central Park in Huntington Beach, Calif.

The men's team, which was ranked No. 8 in the region earlier in the week, had an excellent showing with a sixth-place finish in a 25-team field, one of the largest fields in the event's history.

Aaron Cohen paced the team with his seventh-place finish in the field consisting of 277 runners. He crossed the finish line of the four-mile course in 20:56.4.

Alan Canales rolled through the line in 11th place with a time of 21:07.6 with Angel Yanez (39th, 22:05.9), Ty McCormick (59th, 22:24.9) and Bradley Barbosa (22:36.1) rounding out the team score for ECC.

Overall the Warriors finished with a score of 179, 39 points short of a top-five slot. Cerritos won the event with a score of 83 with Riverside (96), San Bernardino Valley (97), Bakersfield (121) and Orange Coast (130) rounding out the top five.

On the women's side, the No. 11 ranked Warriors one-upped their position by placing 10th on Friday morning with a score of 217.

Sophomore Elaine Dugmore once again paced the Warriors as the team's top finisher, crossing the line in 21:56.6 on the 5,000m course. She placed 29th overall in a field of 141 runners.

Teammate Arianna Hurtado was right behind Dugmore in 30th place with a time of 21:57.2 with Emily Gutierrez (57th, 23:01.1), Denise Delgado (69th, 23:40.0) and Ayla Barbosa (83rd, 24:20.4) rounding out the ECC finishers.

Cerritos won the women's race as well with a score of 75 with College of the Canyons (106), Saddleback (113), Riverside (113) and Bakersfield (136) rounding out the top five.

The Warriors will next compete at the Southern California Preview on Friday Oct. 4 on the campus of Chaffey College. It is a rescheduling of the event after it had to be moved from its original date on Sept. 13 due to the wildfires in the area. The women's race is slated to start at 9:30 a.m. with the men's top-eight set to begin at 10:15 a.m. and the men's overflow race slated for 11 a.m.