Claremont, CA - The SCIAC Cross Country Championships were held this weekend at Pomona-Pitzer. The Leopards entered the championship weekend fresh, eager, and hungry to compete for top conference honors. The men's program used the weekend to leave a mark on the University of La Verne record books. Placing third in the field, the Leopards matched the best performance in program history, finishing behind Claremont-M-S and Pomona Pitzer. Two Leopards finished placing in the top ten, while also earning first-team All-SCIAC honors. TK Berhe had the second-best performance all-time for the Leopards on the course (Michael Sahagun is number one all-time at La Verne) while Edward Carillo, Efren Martin and Nicolas Saenz each finished 10th, 11th and 12th respectively.
The University of La Verne women's team continued to make strides in building towards success. A team of youth, the SCIAC Championships provided the squad with the opportunity to gauge and fine-tune themselves and measure themselves against the totality of the 2022 season. The Leopards improved their top-five average by forty seconds, having competed on the same course three weeks ago. The Leopards women's squad finished seventh in the race behind Cal Lutheran.
Of the ten returning Leopards from both the men's and women's squads, eight of them improved their SCIAC placements from last year.
Women
Andrea Camacho 65th -> 57th
TK Berhe 32nd -> 8th
Michael Sahagun 10th -> 9th
Edward Carrillo 80th -> 36th
Efren Martin 67th -> 38th
Jared Albaugh 94th -> 51st
Marcelo Martinez 59th -> 56th
Andres Flores-Marquez 119 -> 103rd
The freshmen core of both teams performed at a high level, laying the foundation for continued development and attainable success.
The freshmen men had the number one group of freshmen in the conference. Nicolas Saenz placed third, Mateo Cole placed fourth , Zyeir Lasley-Shabete placed eighth, Thomas Taniguchi placed thirteenth and Valencio Coco placed seventeenth out of the freshmen competing in the championships. Freshmen Nicolas Saenz had a breakout performance as he helped the Leopards secure the fifth spot, scoring critical points to help La Verne move ahead of Redlands.
The freshmen women had the fifth-best scoring output of the first-year performers in the conference. Freshmen Madi Bravo finished eighteenth amongst all of the freshmen.
Junior Andrea Camacho displayed great poise, as her experience and leadership as a Leopard was instrumental in her setting a lifetime personal record while finishing as the top runner for La Verne on the weekend.
Head coach Jamie Norton was very proud of his group's hard work and resilience. "Bottom line, I am very proud of this group. We are seeing their hard work from the last six months translate into improvement in leaps and bounds. We are always hungry for more and I know many of the athletes still want to see themselves run even faster, but the stats are clear that we are running better than ever. Beyond the numbers, this team has strong bonds with each other and is motivated to help each other be the best version of themselves on and off the course. It's a very special group of young women and men."
SCIAC Championship Results HERE
Next up: The Leopards will travel with their top seven groups to Plantes Ferry Sports Complex in Spokane, Washington in two weeks to compete at the NCAA Regional Championships to compete for the chance to earn team/individual bids to the NCAA Championship.