The Santa Monica Men’s Cross Country team needed a good race from each of its top five runners to earn an automatic qualifying spot to Regionals.  That did not happen, but some performances were quite noteworthy.  Nick Alvarez showed that his training is peaking at the right point as he improved six spots from the conference preview meet, a huge difference given his already high standing in the conference.  Jason Derks, who has consistently been the team’s number five runner, turned in a great race to finish second for the squad.  Chris Butler faltered a bit in the third mile, but came back in the last mile to finish right behind Jason.  Kenneth Pocasangre and Stephen Loredo completed the scoring for the men.  They have had better days, but Kenneth has given the team much needed spirit, and Stephen, running on a bad leg, put off surgery just so he could help the team.  The men’s displacement scorers, Benito Rios and Marcus Englund had the team’s best time improvements from the conference meet, and that should give them a lot of confidence going forward.  The long, steep hill in the third mile took something out of the legs of Rudy Gomez, Brandon Arrevillaga, and Hector Cruz (and in Brandon’s case, the hill also took something out of his stomach), but they did a good job on the final switchbacks.