OCC women win, men finish second

Orange Coast College runner Michelle Icban bested the woman who

beat her at last year’s California Community College Cross Country

State Championships to win the individual title and lead the Coast

women to their second consecutive state title.

The women have won the state championship 10 times, six in the

last seven years.

The Orange Coast men took second place behind East Los Angeles.

Icban ran the three-mile Woodward Park course in 17:56 to capture the individual women’s title over Santa Rosa’s Trina Cox (18:04).

“Michelle ran a great race,” said OCC men’s and women’s coach John

Knox. “The last half-mile she pulled away from (Cox).”

Ava Jones came in third overall at 18:06 followed by Natalie St.

Andre’s 19:29.

“That’s a nice 1-2 punch on our side,” said Cox about Icban and

Jones.

Also scoring for the Pirate women were Sandra Montoya (28th,

19:48), Suzette Dinoso (34th, 19:57), Roseann Peters (80th, 20:37)

and Natalie Elliott (83rd, 20:42).

The Pirates’ average finish was 19:03 in winning the state

championship with a 1:35:18.

East L.A. came in second at 1:38:33.

The Coast men’s team finished second to East L.A. by 58 seconds,

clocking a 1:46:02.

Joel Guzman led the Coast men with a 10th place finish in 20:54

followed by David Ojeda (24th, 21:10), Sam Ocampo (27th, 21:14),

Vidal Barragan (34th, 21:21), Gilbert Salas (35th, 21:22), Irwin

Salas (37th, 21:27) and Mike Casillas (22:30).

“We were hoping for both (to finish first), but East L.A. on the

men’s side ran incredible,” Knox said.

“Our guys scored 100 points which was enough to win at the

Southern California championships but not here. But our guys ran

great.”

East L.A. won with 69 points to Orange Coast’s 100.

Only Guzman graduates from a Coast team that should continue its

success next year.

“On the car ride home we were already talking about next year,”

Knox said.