Harriers finish strong at Golden West event

The Saddleback men's cross country team placed third out of 16 teams competing in the Golden West Central Park Classic on Friday (Sept. 25), making large strides toward regaining the prowess that was expected of the team before a chain-reaction accident on the freeway prior to the season forced the squad to start over.

Running at full strength - or as close to it as possible - the Gauchos (67) were just seven points off of the pace set by Riverside (60) and just one point behind College of the Canyons (66) with Glendale a distant fourth place at 111 points.

Ulysses Orozco placed second overall (20:56) in the field of 180 runners while Wyndal Skarsten placed seventh overall (21:38) and Ronen Skarsten placed 10th overall (21:44).  The Gauchos were helped by Miles Brubacher (22:09) who placed 19th and Brian Aguirre (22:22) who came in at 29th place.   Mark Delgado (22:32) and Bryce Callender (22:42) also finished in the top 50 runners for the Gauchos.

Saddleback will have next week off to rest up before participating in the Brubaker Invitational at the Irvine Regional Park on October 9.