El Camino Cross Country Finish the Season Strong in the CCCAA State Championship

El Camino Cross Country Finish the Season Strong in the CCCAA State Championship

FRESNO, Calif. – The El Camino Men's Cross Country team came into the championship meet ranked 13th in State (10th in So Cal) and were aiming to move up from that ranking. The Warriors exceeded expectations and finished 12th in the meet and placed ninth amongst So Cal.

Sophomore Israel Cardona (North Torrance) led the team in the 4-mile course.  Cardona finished 30th (21:08) and Solomon Kanehailua (North Torrance) was 14 seconds behind him.  Coach Dean Lofgren was pleased with his teams' results, "All-in-all, a successful year for a tremendous group of hard-working and very enjoyable young men to have had the pleasure to work with." 

The El Camino Women's Cross Country team had one qualifier for the State Championship, Brianna Harmon (El Segundo).   She went into the meet ranked in the 60-90th range (41st in So Cal).  Harmon went into the race with a goal to place higher than ranked and she did. Harmon finished 65th in the field of 199 competitors. She finished in 19:58 (20:00 chip time) in the 3.1-mile (5,000m) course. Coach Lofgren commented, "After narrowly missing qualifying to the State Championships as a team this season, Brianna kept an upbeat positive attitude in preparation for – and during - the competition. Not qualifying as a team is a very rare occurrence for us (first time in 27 years), and we are confident we will be return in 2017!"

Both Men and Women's Cross County will enter a relaxed training period in preparation for Track and Field Season in which the Cross Country teams run distance events.