Jimenez’s Strong Effort Leads Glendale Women

Nicole Jimenez’s third-place finish in the small-college division of the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational on Friday paced the Glendale College women’s cross-country team in its last race before a pivotal Western State Conference meet next week.

Jimenez covered the hilly, three-mile course in 19 minutes, 15 seconds, an improvement of more than a minute over last year’s time as a Burbank High senior.

Pam Fuller took 10th (20:28) and Tricia Mathiesen finished 16th (20:45) to guide Moorpark to a second-place finish with 99 points. Rancho Santiago won with 76.

Glendale’s Sophia Hill took 12th in 20:34. The Vaqueros, however, competed with less than the necessary five runners and failed to score.

In the men’s invitational portion, James Moore, a freshman from Verdugo Hills High, took 27th overall, clocking 20:42 for four miles, as Glendale took 13th with 299 points.

Central Arizona placed three runners in the top 10 to win the men’s meet with 78 points.

In the men’s small-college division, Moorpark placed fourth with 109 points. Tom Biggs and Efrain Robles placed eighth and 11th in 21:44 and 22:10, respectively.

In the women’s small-college race, Gillian Evans of Porterville and Jimenez led from the gun, passing through the relatively flat first mile in 5:45 with a 25-meter lead over the rest of the field.

The duo continued to lead for the next half-mile until Bruni Oonagh of San Diego City overtook both on the steep switchback portion of the course. Oonagh opened up a large margin and ran unchallenged the remainder of the race.

Oonagh finished in 18:38, followed by Evans in 19:06.

“I was kind of scared at first,” Jimenez said. “I like to run on the flat. I’m not much of a hill runner. I think if I maintained contact, I might have been able to catch the second girl (Evans). But I’m still very happy with my time.”

Glendale held out its Nos. 2 and 3 runners, Hedieh Nourbik and Linda Matsuoka, who are injured.

“I’m very happy where we are at this point of the season. It’s good for us to get familiar with this course,” Glendale assistant Coach Ed Lopez said. The Southern California championships will be held at Mt. SAC in November. “But with the conference meets coming up, it didn’t make any sense to risk any further injuries.”

The WSC format calls for all conference members to compete in two meets--the second of which is Friday--before the championships are run Nov. 3. A team’s finish in the championships counts double toward final standings.

In the men’s race, Moore ran among the top 20 for most of the race before fading in the last mile.

“I went out kind of hard,” Moore said. “I felt extremely tired from the second mile on. Those hills caught up with me toward the end.”

Sal Garfias, the Vaqueros’ No. 1 runner early in the season, finished 57th in 21:35 despite being hampered by shin splints.

“Sal’s been (training) on the bike for the past two weeks and hasn’t been able to run much,” Lopez said. “I don’t think we’ll have any problems winning the conference. If we can get our five guys under 21 minutes at (the Southern California championships), we have a good chance to make it to the state meet.”