Cross Country Competes At UC Riverside Invitational
The CMS cross country teams opened their invitational season on Saturday with a workman-like effort at the UC Riverside Invitational that is indicative of the hard work the team has been putting in over the first three weeks of the season.
The meet opened with the women's 6000m Invitational where the Athenas placed fifth out of 16 very competitive teams. CMS won the Collegiate Trophy as the top non-Division I team. Senior Allison Barnwell (21:26) and junior Sara Mostatabi (21:38) led the Athenas by finishing 11th and 21st overall. Lisa Beem ran 22:18 to finish third for CMS as she bested all the non-CMS SCIAC runners in the race. The next four Athenas finished within 16 seconds: Rae Brookshire in 22:44, Adele Eslinger in 22:45, Carmen Mejia in 22:50 and Tess Williams in 23:00. The first six times are among the top-25 in CMS history and personal bests were set by Brookshire, Eslinger, Mejia and Williams with Brookshire improving hers by almost two minutes.
In the men's 8000m Invitational the Stags finished 11th out of 23 teams. Sophomore Zorg Loustalet led the team with a 26th place finish in 25:10, a 28-second improvement over his time at this race last season. Freshman Nico Banks and senior Colin Briskman finished right together in 25:55. Senior Jon Briskman and sophomore Evan Molineux rounded out the scorers in 26:11 and 26:28. J. Briskman and Molineux both set personal bests in the race. Banks and Joshua Sealand (26:48) made their 8K debuts in this race with Banks becoming only the second Stag in the last four years to debut under 26 minutes.
By the time the women's 5000m Open started, the sun was starting to make the conditions tougher. The Athenas finished fifth out of 20 teams, but all four teams in front of them did not have anyone compete in the Invitational race. CMS finished ahead of the six other SCIAC teams in the race including five that also did not have any runners in the Invitational race. Sophomore Nicki Maslan (pictured left) led the team with a 35th place finish and a 49-second personal best time of 18:56. The remaining four scorers finished within 22 seconds ranging from Meghan Fuelling (19:16), Rachel Mow (19:21), Allison Rigby (19:30) and Caroline Willian (19:38). Personal bests were set by Mow, Willian, Melanie Huen (20:49), Emma Klein (21:14) and Leah Snider (23:46).
The men's Open 8000m was run under hot conditions. CMS finished second out of 17 teams finishing behind only a club team of post-collegiate athletes and besting all of the teams that had runners compete in both the Invitational and Open races. The Stags also finished ahead of the five other SCIAC teams in the race including three that did not have any runners in the Invitational race. Freshman Kyle Lund (pictured right) led the team with a 16th place finish in 26:23. Also scoring for CMS were Justin Jones (26:40), Alex Lombardo (26:45), Jack Wilson (26:54) and Matt Cook (27:12). Personal bests were set by Wilson, Cook, Andrew Atwong (28:11) and Stephen Schein (28:13) with Schein's almost two minutes better than his previous best.
CMS will next race on Saturday, September 29 when 10 men and 10 women will compete at the Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto. The following Saturday, October 5, the team will have a select group compete at the Pre-National meet in Hanover, IN while the rest of the team will compete across the street at the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational.