SANTA MARIA — Paige Colijn turned in her highest finish (seventh) and best time (20:19) on Tuesday in the WSC Championships at Waller Park but the SBCC women’s cross country team came up three points shy of advancing to the Southern Cal Regional.
Colijn advanced as an individual to the SoCal meet on Nov. 7 in Bakersfield, along with a pair of Vaquero men. Conner Mellon placed 26th in 23:01 in the 4-mile race with Matt Little taking 49th in 24:07.
SBCC’s women only had five runners due to illness and had to use all five scores. Glendale won with 22 points while the Vaqueros totaled 188, three shy of eighth-place Citrus. The top eight teams advanced to the regional.
Amber Siddiqi placed third for the SBCC women in 22:14 while Ivana Sanchez was 36th in 22:21.
Glendale also won the men’s race with 47 points and Andrew Salg of L.A. Valley was the individual winner in 21:20. SBCC was 12th with 285.
“I was really happy with our three individual qualifiers,” said first-year Vaquero coach Scott Fickerson. “I thought the women (who usually have 7-8 runners) would make it as a team but we came up a few points short.”
