Mesa Cross Country competes at National Championships on Saturday

Thursday November 9, 2023 - 8:00 a.m. | Dylan DeVlieger

The MCC Men's and Women's Cross Country teams will be in action on Saturday as they compete in the NJCAA DII Cross Country National Championships in Huntsville, AL.

Women's Cross Country:

Currently ranked fourth in the country, the Lady T-Birds took home second place in the Region I Championships on Oct. 28, falling by one point to the No. 1 team in the country at the time, Paradise Valley Community College.

Mesa was shorthanded at their previous meet as Taylor Jacobs, Destiny Hernandez, and Tiffany Sanchez all watched from the sideline. MCC only ran with five athletes but all finished within the top 10.

Carmella Baldwin led MCC in the Region Championships as she finished first overall for the third race this season. 

Men's Cross Country:

The No. 2 ranked Thunderbirds enter action on Saturday after their second place finish in the Region I Championships as they fell short against Paradise Valley.

The men were especially shorthanded as they were without Javier Garcia and Ernest Green who have been top five runners for Mesa this season.

Nevertheless the Thunderbirds still competed against the field as Jorge Trujillo finished first overall followed behind by teammate Greyson Akers who took second. Though MCC had four athletes finish in the top 10 it was not enough as they fell to the No. 1 team in the country by 10 points.

After a long journey that began all the way back in the summer, head coach Daniel Pescador is excited to finally be competing at nationals and have a chance to take home a national title.

"Just very excited to finally be here at this point in the season. This has been our main focus all year long," said Pescador, "it has been quite the process and journey that we started about 22 weeks ago with summer training and throughout the fall."

For both teams their goals besides standing on top of the podium when it's all said and done are very similar: finish top three in the country, have four All-Americans from each team (to do so the athlete must finish top 25), and finally each team is eyeing a certain split time for between their first and fifth finisher.

The race will take place at John Hunt Park in Huntsville, AL.