COMMUNITY COLLEGE ROUNDUP : Irvine Valley Women Win Conference Cross-Country Title

Irvine Valley, in its first year of women’s cross-country competition, earned an automatic berth in the Southern California Regionals meet by winning the Orange Empire Conference championship Tuesday at the Rubidoux Nature Center in Riverside.

Irvine Valley’s Sue Davis won the individual title, and the Lasers had five of the first 11 finishers for 33 points. Saddleback (52) was second, Orange Coast (82) third and Rancho Santiago (99) fourth.

Davis was a few steps behind Saddleback’s Denise Hertsch for about the first third of the 5,000-meter race. But Davis then went past and slowly pulled away to win in 19 minutes 11 seconds. Hertsch (19:44) was second, and Saddleback’s Sonja Hildabrand was third in the same time.

Hertsch had defeated Davis by 10 seconds on the same course Sept. 20 in the conference’s Festival race.

“I just wanted to win,” Davis said Tuesday. “I drafted off her for about the first mile then decided to go around.”

Norma Martin (20:05) of Rancho Santiago was fourth and Stacy Pando (20:05) of Orange Coast fifth.

The Irvine Valley women’s team and the Riverside men advanced to the Southern California Regionals Nov. 8 in San Diego. There will be a meeting of representatives of each of the six conferences in Southern California Sunday to determine at-large berths.

In the men’s race, Riverside dominated by taking the first seven places and eight of the first 10.

Gray Mavhera won the four-mile race in 20:15.

In Orange Empire Conference men’s soccer:

Fullerton 1, Orange Coast 0--The Pirates lost their first conference game of the season when Henry Crompton scored 13 minutes into the second half for the visiting Hornets (9-5-3, 4-4-0). Orange Coast is 7-4-7, 4-1-3.

Irvine Valley 2, Cypress 1--Gabe Smith scored with three minutes left in the game for host Irvine Valley (12-2-2, 6-2).