Canyons’ Danielle Salcedo puts exclamation mark on season with state cross country title

College of the Canyons freshman Danielle Salcedo went into Saturday’s Community College State Championships with an undefeated record.

Was that pressure or motivation?

“I’d say it put pressure on me because the day before, when we did the warm ups, I saw people just going for it and it got me a little nervous,” said Salcedo. “I was thinking there were going to be really, really, really fast people here, and there were.”

In the end, Salcedo peeled away from San Diego Mesa College sophomore Yahaira Zuñiga and Ventura College freshman Stina Johansson with 800 meters to go on the 5-kilometer course to capture the women’s title in a personal-best 17:54.9.

“I definitely was a little tired towards the end,” said Salcedo, whose game plan was to break away the final half-mile.

About an hour after Salcedo’s finish, Mt. SAC sophomore Daniel Abdala broke the course record to take the men’s title, making it a Latino sweep for individual honors.

Zuñiga was also nervous at the start of the race at Woodward Park on an overcast morning.

“I just tried to catch up with the girls at the front and stay with them,” said Zuñiga, who timed 18:06.5 to third-place finisher Johansson’s 18:13.8. “I was so tired, but I just tried to give it all because this was my last race.”

Zuñiga said she “had the worst times” in high school and didn’t blossom into a runner until junior college. Part of that was she got sick and quit running for a year.

“I was so negative in high school, but I learned to be so positive all the time,” she said.

Salcedo isn’t sure she’ll be back for her sophomore season.

“To be honest, I’ll just run on my own. I won’t continue to run track,” said Salcedo. “I’m definitely going to run on my own because I love the sport, but I don’t feel like pursuing it.”

Will she be back her sophomore year for cross country?

“We’ll see. I don’t know,” said Salcedo, who quit her senior year of cross country at Saugus High because of “burnout.”

Mt. SAC used a fourth-place finish from freshman Hannah Brown to capture the women’s team championship with 63 points. The school had four runners – Amanda Crowell (18th, 19:18.3), Kaitlyn Atkinson (19th, 19:23), Claudia Vera (21st, 19:24.6) and Kimberly Peña (22nd, 19:25.4) – place in the top 25.

Hartnell College was second with 79 points, and Riverside College took third with 130 points. Clovis Community was fourth with 162 points.

Clovis freshman Jennifer Recinos was the top area finisher with a 16th-place time of 19:15.9.

Bakersfield College freshman Crystal Raya (27th, 19:37) and Clovis sophomore Toni Payton (29th, 19:43) broke into the top 30.

The top 14 finishers earned all-American honors.