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Men's and Women's Cross Country: Owls Make Strides in Stacked Field in San Diego

Men's and Women's Cross Country: Owls Make Strides in Stacked Field in San Diego

Citrus Cross Country loaded up the vans on Friday and headed south to Mission Bay, San Diego for the So Cal Preview races. 

The Owls arrived to the race site on Friday and saw the scale of the races they were about to run. Assistant Coach Diego Lopez had this to say, "Upon arriving at Mission Bay Park the first thing that caught the attention of a lot of the runners was the sheer number of athletes present at the race. For a lot of our kids this was there first real experience at what a race with every So Cal JC with XC teams felt like."  

The Men's race came first with a 3:00 PM start. The Owls' top Men's runner of the day ended up being Eduardo Castillo, who crossed the line with a time of 26:45.60. Coach Lopez recalled the men's race, "The men's team started off with a strong warm up, getting excited to show their stuff in a group of over 200 athletes. Eduardo Castillo lead the Fighting Owls at the first mile, running faster than usual to keep him within the mix in the front group. Not to far behind, Nick Helgeson and Hin Wu stayed close together to have the first 4 owls within 30 seconds of each other. However, his quick start would come back to haunt the Owls as they soon realized the course would be harder than they imagined, as a result the mens team fell short of the times they were aiming for. Joseph Cruz however had a strong showing after missing a few practices. Our guys will look to use these next two weeks to regroup mentality and physically before Conference Preview @ Legg Lake"

The Women's race started promptly at the conclusion of the men. Coach Lopez remarked, "As the men raced the Lady Owls started their warm up with determination on their mind. Kayla Jimenez and Christina Rasmus started off the race conservatively and it paid out for them in the long run. In her first collegiate cross country race, Rasmus showed pure grit as she was able to snag the 159th place out of 210 runners with only 3 weeks of practice. All of this was thanks to Jimenez's leadership helping Rasmus prepare for the race. The ladies will look to come back stronger and faster for conference finals as we plan to tack on the miles and speed workouts."

Citrus competes next at the Western State Conference Preview at Legg Lake in El Monte on October 4th. Race times are at 1:00 and 2:00 for the men and women, respectively. 

For the latest scores, highlights, photos and more, visit www.citrusowls.com  and follow us on Twitter: @ccfightingowls