Cross Country Teams Both Finish Top-10 at SoCal Preview

By Mari Kneisel/COC Sports Information  

LONG BEACH — College of the Canyons cross country turned in a pair of top-10 finishes at the 3C2A SoCal Previewon Friday, with the women's team placing seventh and the men's side finishing 10th in the field of more than 25 schools from across the region.

Freshman Katelyn Catu took home some more hardware as the eighth runner to cross the line at El Dorado East National Park. The current COC student-athlete of the week finished the 5K course with a season-best time of 19:05.8.  

Catu led a group of Lady Cougars that all produced new season-best times.

Canyons freshman Kaiya Cortinas finished in the 16th spot with her time of 19:29.1. Sophomore Emily Cruz found her way across with a time of 21:37 in the 48th slot and freshmen Emily Fairbanks (22:32.2/75th) and Emily Valdez (23:04.4/82nd) followed shortly after in the field of 168 runners.

Riverside City College (111) won the event with Cerritos (121), Allan Hancock (141), Glendale (149) Oxnard (176) and El Camino College (177) all slotting ahead of Canyons (187) in seventh.

On the men's side, sophomore Sam Regez was the first Cougar and 25th runner in the field of 263 to finish the four-mile course, clocking a new personal best at 20:46.9.  

COC freshman Jack Eaton followed in 41st recording a time of 21:22 on the day while sophomore Cesar Tobar(21:56.8/62nd) was next for the Cougars.

Nathaniel Wilkinson knocked off more than a minute from last week, improving his time to 22:21.2 and crossing the line as the 76th runner. Jerome Hughes (22:36.9/89th) and Juan Jimenez-Rojas (22:43.4/93rd) finished together and Fernando Osorio (23:20.2/128th) followed. 

Also representing COC, sophomore Elijah Dixon (23:52.2/141st) and freshman Diego Sanchez (24:02.9/150th) completed the course, though their scores were dropped from the final tally.  

Bakersfield College (59) won the men's race with San Bernardino Valley (97), Orange Coast (117) Riverside City (146), Moorpark (157), Ventura (158), Cerritos (186), Glendale (234), El Camino (241) and Canyons (270) across the top 10

Full event results are available here.

Canyons is back on familiar trails Saturday, Sept. 23 at The Master's University Invitational at Central Park in Santa Clarita.

Stay up to date on all this season's action by following the College of the Canyons Athletic department on social media at @COCathletics on X, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.