ELAC women’s T&F bolts in running events

SAN DIEGO, CA — The East Los Angeles College women’s track and field team competed in the 2016 Arnie Robinson Invite at San Diego Mesa College and returned with top results.

Sophomore Viridiana Hernandez (South Gate HS) placed first among community college women in the 3,000-meter steeplechase run. Hernandez remains undefeated in steeplechase competition with the ninth-fastest time in Southern California.

Teammate Ruby Padilla (Montebello HS) ran her first 800-meter event this year while winning first place in the second heat with a lifetime best time. She placed fourth overall.

Padilla continues to have the fastest time on the team in the 1,500-meter run on the team with Hernandez less than a second behind. Both women are on the cusp of a SoCal time in the event.

Hernandez competed in her first 5,000-meter run in two years and finished with a personal record of 19:15.74 minutes, shattering her previous best time by 1:34.35. She took third place.

Three ELAC sophomores took 10th, 11th and 12th places in the event. Guadalupe Yanez (Bell Gardens HS) placed 10th in 21:13.90, Sophomore Luz Badillo (Alhambra HS) and Melissa Preciado (Bell Gardens HS) took 11th and 12th in 21:27.90 and 21:34.47, respectively.

Preciado ran a personal-best time.

Sophomore Alease Wilson continues to impress in the 100-meter dash in record time. She finished in 13.82 seconds, a 2016 personal record. Wilson outsprinted Long Beach City College freshman Alexandra Moen-Sanders at the finish line by 63/100’s of a second.

Wilson took third place in heat No. 6 of the 200-meter dash in her first race this year in the event.

The Huskies compete in their last meet of the regular season, the Cerritos College Invitational, a two-day event with preliminaries on Friday, April 8 and finals on Saturday, April 9 at Cerritos College.

The postseason begins the last week of April and continues each week until the state championships in late May at San Diego Mesa College.

submitted by Tadzio Garcia