Garcia Wins Cross-Country Regional Title

Hugo Allan Garcia of Glendale College stamped himself as the favorite for the state cross-country championships when he won the Mt. San Antonio College invitational last month.

On Friday, he presented more evidence to back up that claim, winning the Southern California regionals at Irvine Park in Orange.

The victory was the eighth in nine meets for Garcia this season. The Vaqueros finished fourth in the team race with 107 points.

Mt. SAC, the defending state champion, won the meet with 58 points followed by Long Beach City (72) and El Camino (105). Grossmont, with a 137-point total, rounded out the top five.

The top five teams and the top 15 individuals not on a qualifying team advance to the state championships at Mt. SAC next Saturday.

In the women’s race Moorpark, led by Tricia Mathiesen in 10th place, put three runners in the top 19 and five in the top 33 to place a surprising third with 92 points.

El Camino won with 57 points, followed by Mt. SAC (86), Riverside (95) and Orange Coast (99).

Oxnard’s Gina Paramo, the Western State Conference champion, placed third in the women’s race with a time of 18 minutes 17.2 seconds over the 5,000-meter course. Mathiesen, the WSC runner-up, ran 19:05.4.

Garcia waited until approximately 1,000 yards remained in the four-mile men’s race before breaking away from runner-up Oscar Gonzalez of Long Beach City College.

“That was my plan,” said Garcia, who ran 19:16.2 to Gonzalez’s 19:21.4. “I wanted to run the last two miles of the race very hard. That is when you can tell who is the strongest.”

Garcia had plenty of company for the first two miles as teammate Obed Aguirre, David Baptiste and Edgar Montes of Mt. SAC, Homela Melford of Riverside, and Gonzalez ran together.

“(Obed and I) wanted to run with each other for the first three miles,” Garcia said. “Then just take off the last mile.”

Although Aguirre was unable to stay with the lead pack through the three-mile mark, he did hang on to finish fourth in 20:00.1.

Baptiste placed third in 19:51.4, Melford was fifth in 20:04.1, and Montes, who had handed Garcia his only loss of the season at the Irvine Invitational on this same course, finished sixth in 20:12.3.

“Having Allan and Obed up front should really help us next week,” Glendale Coach Eddie Lopez said, “especially if the rest of our guys run well.”