The men and women’s cross country teams won the annual Coast Conference crown in Santa Rosa, which qualified the team for the state competition this November, making it their fourth year in a row.
The team went to the conference competing against various schools, including major competitors Hartnell and Las Positas College. In the women’s cross country team, seven finished in the top 17 out of the 40 runners in the race. For the men’s team, Peter Chew’s performance came in good enough for the Dons to nab second place against San Francisco City College by three points and Las Positas by nine points. This is the highest finish in the conference for the men’s team in over 25 years.
The men’s team faced a challenge when it lost one of its best runners due to an injury.
Team captain Clifford Crum led the Dons with a 4th place finish overall and was followed by sophomore runner Daniel Brody, who came in 7th to join Crum on the first team all-conference for De Anza. Sophomore Gene Burinsky came in 13th place to earn the second team all-conference crown.
“I’d like to think we’re not the favorites coming in, but we are going to come out and give it the best we can and have some great performances today, that’s what our goal is,” said coach Nick Mattis.
Crum from the men’s team and two sophomores, Christina Pando and Rebecca Phillips from the women’s team finished the three mile run in 21-22 minutes with an average mile time of seven minutes.
The best meet for the captain was the Santa Rosa meet, because in the beginning of the season he was sick, and during the meet he finished with a run of 20:50, said Crum.
Kristine Talbot, runner for the women’s team, said that De Anza placed second in the coast conference due to fierce competition. Also, the women’s team lost a few good runners because of injuries.
“I don’t know what the competition looks like. There are a lot of schools that we haven’t raced so I’m hoping for the top 25, but realistically I think I can get top 10,” Talbot said.
