Glendale’s Padilla Romps to Title at Mt. SAC

It was not the summit meeting that Grace Padilla had hoped for, but the Glendale College sophomore made the most of the situation at the Mt. San Antonio College cross-country invitational Friday.

Padilla, a transfer from East Los Angeles College, entered the meet with visions of battling Tracy Rose of Long Beach City College and Jean Harvey of Antelope Valley, the top two returning finishers from last year’s state meet.

But with Long Beach and Antelope Valley opting for other races, Padilla settled for her fourth win in six races this season, with a time of 18 minutes 1 second over the hilly, three-mile course.

That victory propelled Glendale to a sixth-place finish in the women’s invitational race with 125 points. Mt. SAC won with 51 and El Camino, the defending state champion, and Pima (Ariz.) tied for second with 96 points.

Glendale placed fourth in the men’s invitational four-mile race with 118 points, powered by Robert Nelson (fifth) and Hugo Allan Garcia (seventh). Riverside, sparked by a 1-3-4-6 finish by its Zimbabwean contingent, won with 34 points. El Camino finished second with 75 points and San Diego Mesa was third with 97.

With Rose and Harvey--both of whom beat Padilla in the San Diego Mesa invitational earlier this season--absent, Padilla decided to gun for the women’s junior college course record of 17:28. But she was overzealous in her quest, passing the first half-mile in 2:25.

“I thought she had a chance at the record, but that first 880 (yards) took a lot out of her,” Glendale women’s Coach Gretchen Lohr-Cruz said. “That was a little too fast.”

Padilla held a commanding lead of 13 seconds at the one-mile mark (5:28), but Suzanne Castruita of Mt. SAC caught her at the two-mile mark (11:44) and briefly took the lead on the final uphill portion of the race before Padilla shifted into overdrive and won by 12 seconds.

“That surprised me a little bit when she passed me,” Padilla said. “But I have longer legs than her, and I thought I could pass her on the downhill, even though this is her home course.”

Padilla’s time might have been incorrect. Lohr-Cruz and other coaches said the official times for the women’s race were slower than their watches by about 10 or 11 seconds.

The battle for the men’s individual title was much more suspenseful than the women’s, with the lead changing hands several times.

Nelson issued a brief challenge when he bolted to a 10-yard lead at the two-mile mark (9:42), but Riverside’s Gray Mavhera, Muchaipwa Mazano, and Passmore Furusa, and San Diego Mesa’s Gabino Toledo took over at the three-mile mark (14:42). “That wasn’t really a big surge,” Nelson said of his move. “I just wanted to see where they were at. I tried to stay with them when they passed me, but they were just too strong.”

Mavhera won with a time of 19:41, followed by Toledo (19:45), Mazano (19:46), Furusa (19:57) and Nelson (19:58).

Garcia, the defending state champion, was never in the hunt, but he didn’t seem overly disappointed with his 20:25 clocking.

“I was sick last week, and I trained very hard early this week,” he said. “I might have come back too hard, but I have five weeks to get ready for the state meet.”