Yuba College Cross-Country team anticipates a very promising season with a solid group of talented incoming freshman runners.
“Our runners continue to improve their times with every meet,” said Coach Nick Vogt. “The majority of our team are first year runners and the fierce, crowded competition at our larger meets provide many learning opportunities.”
During the eight years that Vogt has coached the 49er cross-country team, Yuba has qualified athletes to post season competition every year, and in all but one year, Yuba has qualified athletes all the way to the state meet.
The Yuba College men’s Cross Country Team returns Nick Mamula and Sherwin Jack, but will be depending on the strengths of many newcomers joining the squad, including Steven Schenck (Rocklin High School), Zack Stuller and Patrick Crow (Marysville High School), Walter Sampley and Mike Rickel (Sutter High School), Mike Smith (Yuba City High School).
Leading the way for the Women’s Team are Raquel Lopez, Erika Ayala, Jennifer Horton and Debra Terry (all of Yuba City High School and very strong incoming runners to the Yuba program).
“This year, we have one of the best men’s team in the past eight years that I’ve been at Yuba,” said Vogt. “Stephen Scheneck and Zack Stuller have already broken into the Yuba college all-time top 10 list, with times of the 23:27 and 23:50 respectively, on the four mile home course at this year’s Yuba Invitational.
Scheneck and Stuller also made the top 10 list for 5K at the John Orognen meet earlier this season, displacing several previous state meet qualifiers”, said Vogt.
In the women’s three mile race-distance, Raquel Lopez ran a fast 22:31 on the hilly Crystal Springs Invitational, Debra Terry ran a personal best time this season of 25:07 to finish fourth at the Lassen invitational earlier this year, while Jennifer Horton ran 24:58 to finish a strong at Crystal Springs.
Yuba has one of the best small school programs in the state. Twice, a full seven personsquad has represented Yuba at the State meet. This year looks promising with many enthusiastic, quality runners on the team.
As of September, Yuba College has made strong showings against many Northern and Southern California teams as well as several teams from Oregon.
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