Cross country finishes second in Hawaii tourney

By Jimmy Chai, On-Line Forty-Niner

Tuesday, September 29, 1998

 

A second-place finish in a Division I game is usually no cause for disappointment unless the first-place finisher is a Division II school.

Saturday, the second-place Long Beach State men's cross country team lost to Division II University of Hawaii, Hilo at the Hawaii Invitational.

The men's tournament, hosted by University of Hawaii, consisted of two Division I teams and five schools from other divisions. With high hopes of success at the start of the race, the end result came as a disappointment, said Andy Sythe, cross country head coach.

"We played second to a very good team," Sythe said. "We took a risk and reached for the stars. We didn't meet our hope, but we ran solid."

The men's team continued its aggressive style of pack running. The tight men's team finished the 5000-meter run close enough to make out each others underwear line. Fred Becerra led the squad with a fifth-place finish and time of 16-minutes, 23-seconds. Twenty-one seconds later, Andy Fondacaro strutted through the line in eighth place.

Derek Decicco and Mark Parilla battled for ninth spot, but Decicco inched Parill by a fraction of a second at 16-minutes, 49-seconds. Parilla finished tenth and Matt Chen anchored the group with 17-minutes, 10-seconds and a 12th-place finish.

The women's squad improved from last week in an impressive show of strength.

Of 11 schools, the women's team came in second behind Southern Utah University, a Division I school.

"We beat some good teams," Sythe said. "We had a good solid performance."

Bree Frigo set a Long Beach State course record with 18-minutes, 53-seconds and a fourth-place finish. Monica MacManus followed 32 seconds behind with a seventh-place finish.

Kim Jackson, who last week set a personal best record, rounded the Top 10 with 19-minutes, 44-seconds and 10th-place finish. Newcomer Kristi Jones, who debuted last week with a 49th-place finish, came in 18th and Danielle Gassman finished in 20-minutes, 53-seconds and a 29th-place finish.

As a whole, the men and women are still building confidence, Sythe said.

"When you reach for the stars [and lose], you tend to slide back a little bit," he said.

The team's next stop is the Stanford Invitational at the Stanford Golf Course.

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