Men’s Cross Country: Vikings finish 20th at Southern California Preview Meet

The Long Beach City College men's cross country team totaled 570 points to finish in 20th place out of a loaded 30-team field at Friday's Southern California Preview Meet in San Diego.

"On paper the SoCal Preview Race looks like a rough day for us," said LBCC head coach Julio Jimenez. "Our goal for the weekend was to preview the course, as the race name implies, and practice some pack running. The spread between our No. 1 and No. 4 guys was only seven seconds, but our No. 5 was almost two minutes back. That cost us major points. We rested a good amount of the guys this weekend since it was our third consecutive week of racing."

Sophomore Gerardo Salazar (Lakewood HS) led the Vikings with a time of 23:10.0 on the four-mile Mission Bay Park course to finish in 94th place. Sophomore Tylor Wallace (Mayfair HS) was close behind in 99th place at 23:13.1, followed by freshman Jordan Horton (Mayfair HS) at 23:15.6 (104th), and sophomore Elias Galvan (San Pedro HS) at 23:17.4 (106th).

Other times for the Vikings:
Gary Palacios (Cabrillo HS), 25:15.3, 172nd
Willie Jenkins (Mayfair HS), 25:48.5, 178th
Taylor Leon (Warren HS), 26:16.6, 186th
Juan Carlos Sanchez (El Rancho HS), 26:37.4 (open race)
Eric Arteaga (Lakewood HS), 27:04.4 (open race)

Long Beach will take the next two weeks off from competition and will return to action on October 9 when the Vikings will compete at the Brubaker Invitational at Irvine Regional Park in Orange.