Panther Women Repeat Region Title at Home

Heading into the 2019 Northern California Championship, the Hartnell College women were hoping to set the championship record for team scoring. After tallying just 19 points a year ago in the championship, this year's team appeared poised to lower that to a near perfect score of 15 points. Sophomore isabelle Torres unfortunately sat out the conference championship and bypassed this meet despite finishing third at the Norcal Preview Meet on October 4th. A minor injury and the goal of the first ever state title for a Northern California lead to a decision to hold out the returning All-Region runner. Instead, this year's victory was near perfect through four runners as the first four Panther women all placed inside the top five overall. The team did record a score of 29 points which becomes the second best team total in championship history.

Sophomore Daniela Salazar looked to become the first regional champion for Hartnell College after placing third a year ago. She was the only female in the region to best defending champion Julia Gonzalez of Diablo Valley College back on September 15th at the Chabot Invitational. Here she chased Gonzalez for the entire race but came up short of the individual title by just under three seconds with Gonzalez crossing the line in 18:22 and Salazar in 18:25. Salazar lowered her time by 25 seconds from the Coast Conference meet held over the same course just 10 days prior. Both runners dipped under the modified Toro Park course record set by Gonzalez at 18:27 back on October 4. Salazar will look to chase Gonzalez to a second All-American honor as both runners were top 14 at last fall's CCCAA Championship in Fresno. Should the former Watsonville Wildcat achieve the feat, she will join all-time greats Malena Grover and Kathy Lenno as repeat All-Americans. Grover was 13th as a freshman and 3rd as a sophomore. Lenno was 9th as a freshman and 2nd her final year. Following Salazar was sophomore Shantal Martinez in third overall. She crossed the line in 18:41 taking 11 seconds off her time from the conference meet. Martinez came into the season with one year of high school running and one year of NCAA D2 competition at Ohio Valley University. She puts her name on a list of potential All-Americans in this fall's final race. Freshman Valeria Gomez-Lozano will return for her sophomore campaign as the highest placing freshman in fourth overall. She was timed in a personal best 18:48, taking 32 seconds of her conference time. The biggest surprise for the Panther women was the arrival of sophomore Nerina Campos. Campos had started races with the front four that included Torres but would fall back the second half of races. Campos chose this race to change that pattern and ran nearly the entire race with Gomez-Lozano to a fifth place finish in 19:09. Like Salazar, Campos repeats her all-region honors as she was fourteenth last fall. Campos now gives the Panthers a solid front five heading into the state championship in two weeks. Freshman Faith Mora will return for her second season as one of top 14 freshman. She would start the race as high as eleventh place and managed to hold on for a 22nd overall finish in 20:01. Mariah Changco was 29th and Joanna Macias 32nd to complete the team.

The Panthers will head into the CCCAA State Championship on November 23rd having placed first in every meet since the Fresno Invitational where they were second to top ranked Glendale College.