LOOK OF DETERMINATION—Freshman Rosa Arellano sprints at the finish line to score for the East Los Angeles College women’s cross country at the 2015 Golden West Classic, Friday Sept. 25, to help the team place eighth. ( Photo by Tadzio Garcia )

Posted: Sep 25, 2015

Women's cross country takes eighth place

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA—The East Los Angeles College women's cross country team ran five personal records, which led to a Huskies' upset of Santiago Canyon College for eighth place at the Golden West Central Park Classic. Santiago soundly defeated ELAC last week.

No. 3-ranked Glendale Community College upset No. 1 ranked College of the Canyons for the team title.

Huskies that scored their fastest times of the young season include sophomores Viridiana Hernandez (South Gate High School), Luz Badillo (Alhambra HS) and Melissa Preciado as well as freshman Gabrielle Trenado (Schurr HS).

Freshman Rosa Arellano (Schurr HS) closed out the scoring for ELAC.

Freshman Jazmin Ortiz (Bell Gardens HS), who did not score, also ran a personal record. Also finishing for the Huskies was sophomore Maybell Sanchez (Alhambra HS).

ELAC has a goal to run its fastest times at the end of the season by building a combination of race speed and race fitness with each meet resulting in faster times according to the coaches.

“We improved our times since last week by running smarter,” said ELAC Coach Louis Ramirez. “Our eighth place finish duplicated our results here (at the Classic) last season in a year we qualified for state.”

Each sophomore improved on the times they ran at this point during the 2014 season.

“Our (fastest runner) Viridiana Hernandez has improved her time from this point in the season last year. We are on course,” said Ramirez.

Hernandez is running injury free. “I got injured during last season, but now I'm finally recovered,” said Hernandez.

“It feels good to be able to contribute more to the team this year."

ELAC competes Friday, Oct. 2 at 10 a.m. at the Foothill Invitational in San Bernardino. The course is similar to the one the Huskies will run at the 2015 SoCal Championships in November, flat with loops of grass and hard dirt.

ELAC Scoring, 2015 Golden West Classic

Women's 5k Run (121 runners)

Viridiana Hernandez, 24, 21:00.2 minutes

Luz Badillo, 40, 22:13.1

Rosa Arellano, 42, 22: 16.2

Melissa Preciado, 56, 23:31.8

Gabrielle Trenado, 72, 25: 17.1

Maybell Sanchez, DNS*, 26:52.2

Jazmin Ortiz, 82nd, DNS*, 27:25.4

Team Results

1. Glendale, 32 points

2. Canyons, 55