by Aidan Shelton
The Lumberjacks raced at Chico for the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Championships against a strong line of competition. The women’s cross country team placed seventh out of 11 teams, while the men placed fifth out of nine teams. Interim Coach Scott Pesch took a break from retirement to step in this year after previously coaching at Humboldt from 2010-17. While he described the outcome as expected, he was happy with both teams’ overall performance.
“The men, we wanted to get top half of the conference, because the conference was very strong, it’s relative to the regional,” Pesch said. “So, you have Chico in there, then you have Pomona and then San Marcos is real strong. I just forgot how fast everybody was when I was coaching previously.”
The most standout individual performance came from junior Isabel Perez-Zoghbi, who placed 15th overall in the women’s 6K with a time of 22:14.1, earning her second All-CCAA honors. Perez-Zoghbi transitioned back into long distance after competing in the 400m hurdles earlier in her collegiate career, competing in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 2 Championships in 2024 and ranking 16th in the nation.
“I started off pretty slow out towards the back,” Perez-Zoghbi said. “And then after 2K, I just started moving up. And I think [at] 2K to go, I was around like 40-something place… I was in like the low 20th places with 1,200 meters to go, and I didn’t catch the last girl to get the top 15 until like 75 meters to the finish line. So, it was like a kick finish — it was definitely a sprint finish.”
The best individual performance on the men’s side came from junior Jacob Christopher, who ran the 8K with a time of 25:47.7, placing 26th overall. Christopher was coming into the race with a mindset of being less conservative than his previous race in San Francisco.
“I want to run with the leaders and the top pack a little more so, more aggressively and hold onto a pace, and eventually kind of die off low,” Christopher said. “I would say I kind of went in a little too hot, and I definitely paid for it.”
The Jacks will wrap up their cross country season in Monmouth, Oregon for the NCAA West Regional Championships on November 8th. After the cross country season, the Jacks will be preparing for the start of the indoor track season in the winter, with the opening meet in Reno, Nevada on Dec. 4 through 6.
Aidan Shelton is a journalism major with a minor in environmental ethics and the Sports Editor of the Lumberjack. For any sports inquiries contact azs10@humboldt.edu.