Camacho and Ochoa Start Season Strong

The Hartnell College women's team has won three consecutive Northern California titles but a fourth in 2022 will have to be built from nearly scratch. With the loss of four members of last year's squad, the team will rely heavily on returners Sofica Camacho and Ashley Ochoa. With the season still in its infancy, the Panthers chose to hold a full team from the line in their first meet at the Crystal Springs Early Bird Invitational until new members have had a chance to catch up on conditioning. The three that did comete faired well and set the tone for the team for this season. 

Sophomore Sofia Camacho won her first race of her final cross country season for Hartnell. Camacho used a strong move to pass an early leader from Monterey Peninsula College with about 1200 meters to go. She crossed the line in 19:25, just 8 seconds off her best from last year and good for a safe 17 second margin of victory. Fellow sophomore Ashley Ochoa finished third in 19:59 to break 20 minutes on the historic couse for the first time. She trailed only conference rival Serena Geis of DeAnza College with Camacho, Geis, and Ochoa the only runners under 20 minutes. Freshman Maria Garcia kicked off her Hartnell College career with a ninth place finish. Scoring the race through three runners the Panthers would be leading DeAnza 12-13 points before adding in Hartnell's fourth and fifth runner. 

The Panthers will take several weeks off and allow some training time for their new runners before testing themselves at the Northern California Preview Meet to be held at Rohner Park in Fortuna, CA on Saturday, September 17th.