Riverside Sends Several Through to 3C2A SoCal Championship

Riverside City College competed at the 3C2A SoCal Regional Prelims Friday, with multiple Tigers securing their spots in next week's championship.

In the only final event of the day, Ernesto Ruiz took second in the 10K, clocking in at 31 minutes, 51.70 seconds – just five seconds behind first place. Nicandro Rosas also finished in the top 10, taking eighth in 32:34.36. Both will compete at the 3C2A State Championship on May 17.

Ruiz grabbed the best time in the 3K steeplechase by almost 20 seconds, crossing the finish line in 9:27.47. Kailil O'Brien and Daniel Nava will join Ruiz in next week's finale after posting respective times of 9:45.03 and 9:48.12.

Anthony Ruiz secured a spot in the 1500-meter race after finishing in 3:58.86, while also qualifying in the 800-meter with a time of 1:56.63.

Tschaikowsky Brown and Rowan Hudson each qualified for the 110-meter hurdles with respective times of 14.91 and 15.17 seconds.

Marcellus Linton earned his chance to compete in the 200-meter finale with a prelim time of 21.51 seconds.

The Tigers' 4x100 relay team (Linton, Elijah Davis, Jacob Petrick, Kai Fowlkes) won its heat to qualify for the championship, finishing in 41.60 seconds, while the 4x400 team (Linton, Davis, Anthony Ruiz, Jack Slavin) also qualified in 3:19.58.

Two Tigers earned their spots in the javelin finale as Justin Stevens and Andrew Cancino posted qualifying marks of 45.18 meters and 45.02 meters, respectively.

Edward Ta'amilo set the tone in the prelims after posting the best hammer mark of 53.19 meters – four meters further than his competition. He also had the best discus throw of the day (53.34 meters) and the furthest shot put toss at 16.11 meters.

Isaiah Butler (45.66 meters), Christian Burroughs (43.92 meters), Olmer Lovos (42.31 meters), Adam Torres (41.25 meters) and Matthew Emmons (40.33 meters) also qualified in the hammer, while Butler (48.72 meters), Burroughs (42.63 meters), Samuel Willis (38.89 meters) and Cody Gourlay (38.53 meters) earned their spots in the discus championship.

Five other Tigers will compete in the shot put finals: Justice Brown (14.29 meters), Burroughs (14.15 meters), Emmons (13.51 meters), Aydeen Nava (13.11 meters) and Torres (13.05 meters).

Willis also secured a spot in the pole vault championship with a mark of 4.10 meters.

Bryson Williamson qualified in the high jump after posting a mark of 1.90 meters, while Zachary Owens finished at 1.80 meters to also qualify.

Quinten Flowers, Devyn Smith and Jason Allen will represent RCC in the triple jump after posting qualifying marks of 14.52, 14.19 and 13.34 meters, respectively.

The 3C2A SoCal Championship takes place next Friday, where Tigers will look to earn their ticket to the 3C2A State Championship the following week.