Huntington Beach, CA (Cross-Country) -- Freshmen Vanessa Esquivel and Manuel Darby paced the Fighting Owls at the Orange Coast Invitational this past weekend. Esquivel led the Lady Owls with a time of 22:50.61 over the 5K course, the 83rd best time out of the 173 runners competing in Saturday's event. Darby would do the same for the men, running the 4-Mile course in a time of 24:44.74 and finishing in 146th place out of the 218 runners.
Finishing just behind Esquivel on the women's side, was Cynthia Acedo (23:42.53) who finished 105th and Julia Manzo who was just behind Acedo (24:37.23) finishing 126th. As a team the Lady Owls finished 16th out of the 19 scoring teams.
On the men's side, the Citrus runners practically finished in a pack. After Darby brought in the lowest time, Daniel Mendoza (24:45.66, 148th) and Luis Bowman (24:51.34, 151st) finished just seconds behind him, helping Citrus finish 21st out of the 25 scoring teams.
The Fighting Owl cross-country team will hit the course again this weekend, as they stay a little closer to home at the Foothill Invitational in Chino, CA. The first race is set to start this Saturday at 9:00 AM at Prado Park.
Results