Southern California Regional Championships
November 4, 2022
On Friday, November 4th, the SCC Men's and Women's Cross Country Teams competed in the CCCAA Southern California Regional Cross Country Championships hosted by Bakersfield College at the Kern County Regional Soccer Park.
The men's team completed their season with a 21st place final ranking within the Southern California Region. The Running Hawks were led by sophomore Jesus Retiguin who ran a 4-mile time of 21 minutes 46 seconds and earned an individual qualifying berth for the State Championships with his 70th place finish within the field of 190 competitors. Freshmen Johan Espejo (22:28, 97th place), Evan Aguilera (23:07, 118th place), Jacob Hallahan (26:02, 170th place), Chris Flores (26:24, 174th place), and Erik Cano (26:28, 175th place) completed the team scoring for the Running Hawks. All six members of the team completed the course in personal lifetime best times for the 4-mile cross country race distance.
Freshman Pyper Slattery (19 minutes 43 seconds) and sophomore Kassie Machado (20 minutes 44 seconds) led the way for the Lady Hawks as they placed 34th and 55th respectively and each earned individual qualifying berths into the State Championships. Elizabeth Ramirez (24:07, 119th place) and Selah Darden (28:49, 134th place) also represented well as they finished in lifetime personal best times for the 5,000 meters cross country race distance. Unfortunately, the SCC Lady Hawks failed to register a team score in the event as one of their runners was unable to complete the course due to illness.
SCC will next be represented by both women's individual qualifiers (Pyper Slattery and Kassie Machado) along with lone men's individual qualifier (Jesus Retiguin) at the CCCAA California State Cross Country Championships which will be held in two weeks on Saturday, November 19th, at Woodward Park in Fresno.