The Pasadena City College men's cross country team has already made a big leap in performance under new head coach Innocent Egbunike and assistant coach Tyrus DeMinter with the Lancers' third place finish out of 13 scoring teams at the Palomar Invitational held in Oceanside September 9.

Riverside dominated with most of the top runners and scored 23 points to win the meet with Santa Ana (56) second and PCC a surprising third (114). The Lancers finished ahead of the only other South Coast Conference teams participating in El Camino (fourth, 121) and Long Beach City (12th, 313).

Nathan-Michael Guzman once again was PCC's top finisher as he placed 11th overall out of 138 runners over the 4-mile course. The sophomore ran 21 minutes, 33.2 seconds. He was followed by freshman Eduardo Urbina in 24th (22:09.2), letterman Eric Bravo in 28th (22:19.6), rookie Christian Alcala in 33rd (22:30.2), frosh Armando Solis in 40th (22:50), and newcomer Kalen Marshall in 44th spot (22:58.5).

What was impressive is that each of those six Lancers finished in the upper third of the field and all under 23 minutes. Other Lancers participating were Marcelo Ramirez (52nd, 23:22), Tymel Minter (91st, 24:59), Milton Lamar (108th, 26:17), Jeremy Alvarenga (117th, 27:59), and Vicente Estrada (118th, 28:11).

Riverside's Joshua Silva won the race in 20:43.7. The Tigers placed six of the first eight runners.

PCC will next run in the SoCal Preview Meet this Friday, Sept. 16 at Irvine Regional Park in the City of Orange.  

[Photo--Lancer Kalen Marshall in a recent race, image by Richard Quinton.]