Occidental Coach Bill Harvey is wary of...
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Occidental Coach Bill Harvey is wary of crediting one athlete for the success of this year’s team, but it is difficult not to notice the Tigers’ No. 1 runner.
Beltran, a junior transfer from Fullerton Junior College, led Occidental to a seventh-place finish in the Fresno Invitational on Sept. 15 and helped the Tigers to a convincing double-dual meet victory over Redlands and Pomona-Pitzer last Saturday.
He finished ninth in Fresno against a field of predominantly Division I runners and smashed the five-mile course record at Redlands with a time of 26 minutes 59.7 seconds.
“He’s certainly a very good runner and very experienced,” Harvey said of Beltran, a native of Mexico and the national junior college record-holder in the marathon (2:17:26). “But there’s a lot more to his life than running. He’s a very fine student and a highly motivated one.
“School’s going to come first with him no matter how he runs.”
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