Long Beach City College placed 14 out of 32 schools in the men’s SoCal Regional Preview 4K Run at El Dorado Park on Sept. 15 with the help of sophomore runner Riki Moscoso and freshman runner Joshua Jung.
Moscoso crossed the finish line at a time of 20 minutes, 52 seconds, finishing 30th overall in the individual race.
Jung crossed the finish line 20 seconds after Moscoso, finishing with a time of 21 minutes, 11 seconds, placing himself 35th overall.
In comparison to the team’s first cross country meet on Sept. 1 in Moorpark, Moscoso had made adjustments and finished a minute faster in the SoCal Regional Preview.
“That’s something we teach as a coaching staff, to improve every week,” said Marcus Carroll, LBCC’s director of track and field.
Jung also improved in his completion time at the El Dorado race, finishing the race approximately 38 seconds faster than the first meet in Moorpark.
These may not seem like big improvements, but improving after every race is all that matters, in the eyes of Carroll.
After the race came to an end, Moscoso acknowledged the little-by-little improvements he made.
“Coming from what I did two weeks ago, I improved my time by a minute, so I feel really good about my time, personally,” said Moscoso.
He also touched on how the LBCC team did as a whole.
“I know as a team, we could’ve done a lot better, and we’re going to try to improve for next week. Everybody’s trying to improve and that’s what it’s about. It’s a good step in the right direction from where we were two weeks ago,” he said.
Men’s cross country coach Julio Jimenez also chimed in on his team’s performance as well as what the plan is for training and practices in order to get even better scores and finishing times.
“I think today was an okay day,” said Jimenez.
“From our last race two weeks ago, I think the whole group improved on their four-mile time, so can’t complain about that. This was a tougher course and they ran faster, and we’ll take that. We’re going from longer workouts with a good intensity to now shorter workouts where those workouts are going to simulate paces closer to what they’re going to be racing.”
The team is looking to build off of their performance in their next meet on Saturday morning in Santa Clarita.
