FORT KNOX

MORENO VALLEY -- The Orange Coast College Invitational, a.k.a. the

Southern California Community College Cross Country Championships,

was a study in domination Saturday as the Pirates of Coach John Knox

swept to championships in the men’s and women’s divisions.

The men, whose victory could be traced to any one of the five

scoring runners, bested East Los Angeles College for honors, 100-106,

while the women, paced by the blowout 1-2 finish of Michele Icban and

Ava Jones, destroyed runner-up Fullerton to the tune of 58-129.

Icban won the 5K race with a time of 18:46.5, and Jones followed

in 19:02.6.

The Pirates’ quality depth showed with the next three scoring

places as Natalie St. Andre (20:34.7), Roseann Peters (20:48.2) and

Sandra Montoya (21:01.2) went 16-20-24 to provide Coast with the huge

margin.

The Pirates’ average run (20:02.54 for the distance) was 55

seconds better than Fullerton’s average individual time.

Also competing for the Pirates were Natalie Elliott (21:08.8) and

Susie Dinoso (22:00.0).

“We were pretty confident going in with the women,” Knox said. “We

had couple of girls who didn’t run as well as usual but the great

thing was that (St. Andre, Peters and Montoya) all ran their best

races, it was a real great team effort. Michelle did a great job as

far as winning the race.”

While there was no suspense at all surrounding the Pirates’

victory in the women’s division, the men’s race was another matter.

Riverside’s Hussain Bashir was the winner over the 3.9-mile course

in 19:45.2, but OCC answered with a pack winners.

Joel Guzman was eighth in 20:22.8, Gilbert Salas followed in

20:37.4 (16th), then Irwin Salas (20:38.9) came in 19th and David

Ojeda was 25th in 20:57.6.

At 34th, with seven places to spare, came Vidal Barragan in

21:03.3.

“The guys were the surprising ones,” Knox said. “Going in we were

looking realistically at a third-place finish but we had (the Salas

brothers) who ran the race of their loves and brought us back into

it. The guys run so well together. We haven’t had one big superstar,

but each runner takes turns and does a good job.”

East LA, with a 4-9-13 finish among its top three, saw a 40-43

(21:10.0 and 21:11.2) finish for its fourth and fifth runners fall

victim to the Pirates.

Both the men’s and the women’s teams will next compete in the

state championships in two weeks in Fresno.