Southern Section Returns XC Finals to Mt. SAC

By Mark Gardner, MileSplit CA

In welcome news for many coaches, athletes and spectators, the CIF Southern Section made it official Wednesday that the section’s cross country championships will return to iconic Mt. San Antonio College course for the 2020 post-season.

The CIF-SS has conducted its cross country preliminaries and championship meet at the Riverside City Course the past four years while an $87 million renovation of the stadium and adjacent facilities was underway at the Mt. SAC campus in Walnut. 

“We are excited to return to Mt. San Antonio College and their beautiful state of the art facility for the CIF Southern Section-Ford Boys and Girls Cross Country Championships,” CIF-SS Commissioner of Athletics Rob Wigod said in a release.

“We want to thank Mt. SAC and Facilities Director Doug Todd for welcoming us to their venue and we look forward to an outstanding championship experience for our student-athletes and all of our stakeholders,” Wigod said.

With schools closed and California still under a stay-at-home order designed to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic that has already killed more than 61,000 in the United States, the return of high school sports in the fall remains tentative.

According to the CIF-SS release, the tentative dates for the 2020 Cross Country Championships are November 13-14 for the prelims and Nov. 21 for the final.

NOTE: Due to COVID-19 impacts, the CIF-SS Cross Country Championships have been rescheduled for Friday & Saturday, March 12-13 and Saturday, March 20, 2021, prelims and finals, respectively.

It should be noted that despite the on-going construction, Mt. SAC continued to hold its annual cross country invitational in October and served as the venue for the Foot Locker West Regionals.

This past February, CIF-SS officials met with Todd, the Mt. SAC Director of Special Events, to confirm that the extreme facility upgrade had concluded and in no way, would hinder hosting the CIF-SS postseason once again.

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