Orange Empire Runners Tune Up for State

The Orange Empire Conference, which will be well-represented at the State cross-country meet this month, is having its finals starting at 2:20 p.m. today at Craig Park in Brea.

The top four men’s and women’s teams already have won berths to the State championships Nov. 20 at Woodward Park in Fresno.

On the men’s side: Irvine Valley, Rancho Santiago, Riverside and Orange Coast have qualified. Golden West, Irvine Valley, Orange Coast and Rancho Santiago are going to the women’s race.

The conference champions earn automatic berths to the State meet, but there is little chance it will be a team that hasn’t already qualified.

The Irvine Valley women, who have been the ranked first or second all season in Southern California, should win their third consecutive conference title.

Orange Coast, which has been finishing just behind the Lasers most of the season, has the best chance of beating Irvine Valley.

Kim Foster of Golden West set the three-mile course record of 17 minutes 53 seconds at the conference’s festival run in early October. Foster’s teammate, Lisa Mote, was second in that race.

But Riverside’s Emebet Shiferaw, who didn’t run in the earlier race, is the clear favorite today. Shiferaw, from Ethiopia, had a convincing victory at the Irvine Invitational last month and is the defending conference champion.

Irvine Valley’s Mayra Medina and Donna Proia, Orange Coast’s Adrienne Sweetser and Fullerton’s Teresa Vega could also finish among the top five.

Riverside is the favored men’s team. The Tigers started slowly this season but improved in the second half of the season.

Rancho Santiago, which beat Riverside at the Orange Empire Conference festival run, has the best chance of beating the Tigers.

The individual title figures to go one of four runners: Riverside’s Alamayehu Robba-Jimma (Ethiopia), Abderrayak Merchond (Morocco) and Wilhelm Gidabuday (Tanzania) of Riverside or Darin Rabb of Orange Coast.

Rabb set the course’s four-mile mark this season with run of 19:43.

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Bowls and polls. Riverside (4-4) holds the upper hand in the race for Mission Conference Central Division football title. The Tigers, who have won four games in a row, play host to Golden West (4-4, 2-1) at 7 p.m. Saturday.

A Riverside victory would give it at least a tie for the division title going into the regular-season final Nov. 20 at Fullerton.

Orange Coast (5-3, 2-1) is at Saddleback (5-3, 2-1) at 7 p.m. Saturday. Both are rooting for Golden West to stop Riverside.

But Riverside still would hold the advantage, having already beaten Saddleback and Orange Coast this season.

Fullerton (3-5, 0-3) plays Rancho Santiago (2-5-1, 0-3) at Santa Ana Stadium at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

Palomar (8-0) remained the No. 1 team in the weekly Southland Poll. Bakersfield (8-0) is second and Long Beach (9-0) third.

San Bernardino Valley (7-1) is fourth, Mt. San Antonio (6-2) fifth, Moorpark (6-2) sixth, Cerritos (6-1-1) seventh, Riverside (4-4) eighth, Orange Coast (5-3) ninth and Citrus (6-2) 10th.

Notes

In water polo, Golden West (26-4) is the top-seeded team in the Southern California playoffs, which start Wednesday.

The top four seeded teams--Golden West, No. 2 Cuesta (28-7), No. 3 Grossmont (26-8) and No. 4 Orange Coast (26-8)--get first-round byes.

In Wednesday’s games: No 9 Rancho Santiago (22-9-1) is at No. 8 Long Beach (22-7), No. 12 Saddleback (10-22-1) is at No. 5 Ventura (23-10-1), No. 11 Cypress (17-16) is at No. 6 Citrus (29-3-1) and No. 10 Chaffey (22-9-2) is at No. 7 El Camino (20-11-1).

Second-round games start at 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. Friday at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach. The semifinal games are at 6 and 7:30 p.m. Friday. The third-place game is at 6 p.m. and the championship game is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.