Fresno – The San Diego Mesa Men's cross country team won the CCCAA State Championships on Saturday with a dominating performance by scoring 37 points and earning the programs 4th state title at Woodward Park. The last Men's state title was won in 2001. The top 5 scorers placed in the top 13 and earned All American honors. The Men's overall team time (1:43:20 - 20:40 avg), was the fastest time in school history.
Excerpt from CCCAA article by Woody Wilk - Fresno City Athletics
Not only did SDM win the men's title, but all five runners who figured in the scoring also earned All-America honors. They were led by sophomores Stefen Rasmuson in second (20:15.0) and Isaiah Labra (20:30.4) in third as both earned All-America honors for the second straight year. Cristian Alcantar (20:44.9) took seventh, Bobby Brana (20:54.8) was 12th and Medhane Woldu (20:56.1) was 13th to complete the set. Only 41.1 seconds separated SDM’s ‘fabulous five.' Ian Ibarra had a notable performance by finishing 21st in 21:15.
Coach Sean Ricketts could not have been prouder. “As a coach, you want your team at the end of the season to execute and run to their ability level and that’s exactly what they did today,” he said.
"They followed the plan. Our goal was to have five runners in the top 15 and to win state. And they’re champions. That’s what we’ve been training for the last two years. This group is pretty much all sophomores, so since they were freshmen we’ve instilled ‘if you want to be a champion, everything you do has to be like a champion,’” Ricketts added. Message sent; 2019 championship via special delivery.
Men's Team Video Interview Courtesy of Dyestat