Both XC Teams Open With Dual Meet Wins
The men's and women's cross country teams both defeated Westmont College in their season opening dual meets. The Stags won 26-30 and the Athenas won 18-41 with both teams racing over four miles. Junior Rafer Dannenhauer won the men's race with a time of 20:00 and senior Jennifer Tavé won the women's with a course record time of 22:00.
The Stags, who were looking at some rebuilding after losing three of their top five runners from last year to graduation, ran almost identically to their race at this meet last year. This year's team time was eight seconds faster for five runners. The other scoring runners were seniors Julian Martinez and Bryan Chow, junior Brian Sutter and freshman Andrew Wordell. The top men's performance was by their seventh runner, junior Russell Page, who set a personal best on the course by 81 seconds and finished in the top seven for the Stags for the first time in his career.
The Athenas returned almost their entire team from last year and ran significantly better than they did at this competition last season. The team time for the top five runners was over four minutes faster this year. Tavé improved her time by over 90 seconds as did the team's third finisher junior Marnie Hogue. Sophomore Laura Sauvage's 23:28 time was faster than Tavé's winning time from last season. Freshman Sara Mostatabi and senior Julia Rigby rounded out the scoring runners. The most impressive performance was by sophomore Lisa Beem who improved 2:32 from last year (38 seconds per mile).
Both teams compete again this Saturday, September 10 at the UC Irvine Invitational. Both teams will race in the 'A' race against Division I, Division II and nationally ranked NAIA teams. The women race at 8:55 and the men race at 9:25. Last year, the Athenas won the 'B' race and the men finished fourth in the one men's race.
