Occidental Coach Bill Harvey is wary of...

Occidental Coach Bill Harvey is wary of crediting one athlete for the success of this year’s team, but it is difficult not to notice the Tigers’ No. 1 runner.

Beltran, a junior transfer from Fullerton Junior College, led Occidental to a seventh-place finish in the Fresno Invitational on Sept. 15 and helped the Tigers to a convincing double-dual meet victory over Redlands and Pomona-Pitzer last Saturday.

He finished ninth in Fresno against a field of predominantly Division I runners and smashed the five-mile course record at Redlands with a time of 26 minutes 59.7 seconds.

“He’s certainly a very good runner and very experienced,” Harvey said of Beltran, a native of Mexico and the national junior college record-holder in the marathon (2:17:26). “But there’s a lot more to his life than running. He’s a very fine student and a highly motivated one.

“School’s going to come first with him no matter how he runs.”