By Max Perez
The men’s and women’s cross country teams both failed to crack the top-five at the Big West Conference Championship held at the UC Riverside Agricultural and Operations Course Saturday.
In the men’s 8K, Long Beach State was unsuccessful in finishing a single runner in the top-25 and finished sixth overall out of eight. Senior Michael Simpson finished 26th with a time of 25:30.1. He was closely followed by junior Ricky Villa (26:01.3) and sophomore Jacob Korgan (26:02.5) in 29th and 30th respectively.
“On the guy’s side we were very tight, I couldn’t get them loose,” head coach Shawn Winget said. “Ray Ornelas had an asthma attack, he’s been running one or two all year so that’s a major hit and we never got into it.”
In the women’s 6K, the team struggled to get into the race as well, finishing seventh out of nine overall. They were led by senior Alyssa Allen who finished 36th with a time of 22:07.9. The next to finish for the team was sophomore Ryley Fick, 48th overall with a time of 22:35.6.
“When you start there, it’s tough to get a good team score,” Winget said. “It was across the board, mediocre at best for who and what they are and what they’ve done this year.”
This performance comes two weeks after the squad returned from Santa Clara where they raced in the Bronco Invitational and had multiple personal bests, and Allen ran the sixth-best time in Long Beach State history in the women’s 6K.
“I wish I could put my finger on it, I obviously have to get back to the drawing board,” Winget said, “You gotta look back after meets like this and figure out where it went wrong.”
From here the Beach will have a two-week break before NCAA Western Regionals hosted by Washington State in Colfax, WA.
“It’s about getting them OK,” Winget said. “After this practice we’re not talking about it anymore, we just have to move on.”
The Long Beach State cross country team will next race the NCAA West Regionals Friday, Nov. 15 hosted by Washington State.
