COLLEGE ROUNDUP : Mission’s Evans Places 3rd in Women’s State Cross-Country Race

Permille Evans of Mission College timed 18 minutes 3 seconds Saturday to place third in the women’s three-mile race in the state junior college cross-country championships at Woodward Park in Fresno.

Ventura’s women’s and men’s teams finished eighth and ninth, and Glendale placed teams in the top 20.

In a meet expanded to 28 teams and 256 runners, Glendale’s men finished 11th and its women 20th.

Glendale’s America Rivas (17th, 19:05) and Ventura’s Valerie Aceves (20th, 19:10) earned top-20 finishes in the women’s race.

“We would have liked to have seen (Rivas) finish in the top 10,” Glendale Coach Jon Gold said. “She was ready to run but just couldn’t break out early.”

Jacques Sallberg of Glendale, the Western State Conference champion, finished 131st in 21:51 in the men’s four-mile course. He fell ill after the conference meet and only resumed running Friday.

The men’s teams were aided in the final standings by the disqualification of Riverside College, which had five of the first six finishers.

Three course monitors determined unidentified Riverside team members had “impeded the progress” of other runners during the race and disqualified the top five, said Jim Linthicum, field chairman and member of the race-appeals jury.