The UC Irvine Men’s Cross Country team finished in eighth place at the Big West Championships at Queen Kapi’olani Regional Park in Honolulu on Oct. 31.
The first race of the Big West event began at 7:30 a.m. with the Men’s 8K. Other Big West competitors included Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (SLO) and UC San Diego (UCSD).
For the 8K, UC Davis (UCD) senior Muhammed Ahmed came in first place with a dominant time of 24:14.2. Following just seconds behind, Spencer Pickren — a redshirt senior from SLO — placed second with a time of 24:22.3.
Third place was taken by UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) senior Zachary Parker, who clocked in at 24:23.5. In fourth place, the second SLO runner — redshirt freshman Eddie Sion — cut it close behind Parker at 24:25.9. UCD senior Chris Coles crossed at 24:33.3 and secured fifth place in the race.
The Anteaters’ first runner to cross the finish line was sophomore Juan Chantaca at 25:24.9 to come in at 23rd place. Despite coming in less than 30 seconds later, the second ‘Eater to clock in was junior Jimmy Markowicz at 25:41 for 32nd place.
In 54th place, Irvine’s third runner — freshman Ziyad Abdallah — crossed with a time of 26:12.1. Following closely behind his Anteater teammate, freshman Javin Schmitt came in 58th place at 26:24.1.
Less than a minute later at 27:02.7, Anteater freshman Mark McAleenan Jr. placed 67th. The two final Irvine runners were sophomores Angel Cordero in 76th place at 28:19.3 and Omar Reyes in 78th place at 29:14.
With the final scores composed of the team’s top seven runners, Irvine scored a total of 206 points, putting them in eighth place overall. The individual scoring places for the Anteaters were 22-29-48-51-56-59-61. The ‘Eaters concluded the race with a team time of 2:10:45 and an average time of 26:09.
SLO came in first for the fourth year in a row with an overall score of 27 points. SLO’s seven-man lineup all placed in the top 16 with finishing and scoring places of 2-4-6-7-8-9-16.
UCD was only 20 points behind to secure second place with 47 points and scoring places of 1-5-10-11-20-37-38. California State University, Fullerton came in third place with 98 points and scoring places of 12-15-18-19-34-40-41, while UCSB was in fourth place with 107 points and scoring places of 3-13-25-30-36-42-43. California State University, Long Beach came in fifth place with 131 points and scoring places of 14-21-23-26-47-55-58.
UCSD had 151 points and scored places of 17-28-32-35-39-44-50 — putting them in sixth place. Seventh place went to California State University, Northridge with 179 points and scoring places of 24-27-33-46-49-52-53. Behind Irvine, UC Riverside came in ninth place with 247 points, scoring places of 31-45-54-57-60 and two runners who did not finish the race.
The final race for the UCI Men’s Cross Country team will be at the NCAA West Regional at the Haggin Oaks Golf Complex in Sacramento, Calif., on Nov. 14. If UCI places in the top two at the NCAA West Regional, they will gain an automatic bid to compete at the NCAA Championships at Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia, Mo., on Nov. 22.
Gissel Delgado is a Sports Staff Writer. She can be reached at gissead1@uci.edu.
Edited by Jack Fedor and Mia Noergaard.