McGrath captures another race

The Saddleback women's cross country team finished in third place at the Brubaker Invitational on Friday at Irvine Regional Park.  Sophomore Dana McGrath won her fourth race of the year.

Saddleback was racing against some of the top competition in the state on Friday, with Northern California's top team (Hartnell College) and arch rival Riverside City College both competing.  The Gauchos finished one point out of second place and appear headed in the right direction heading into the back side of the schedule.

McGrath was again in top form, winning by nearly four seconds by completing the 5k trek in 19:27.3.  She was 3.5 seconds ahead of a pair of Hartnell runners, who she passed in the final 1.5 miles of the race.

Saddleback had three other harriers finish in the top-20 with Nayelli Hernandez finishing 10^th (20:22.5), Cayla Porter 11^th (20:22.8) and Alexis Park 17^th (20:42.1). 

Maybe the most interesting story to come from Friday was Holly Morales,  who was running in her first event of the season.  Morales finished in 42^nd place overall, running the last 1.5 miles with only one shoe after blowing out a tire on the course (see below). 

Saddleback will run again at the Highlander Invitational next Saturday at UC Riverside.