(Palo Alto, CA) – The University of San Francisco men's cross country team had a solid meet at the 38th annual Stanford Invitational Saturday, September 24, beating West Coast Conference rivals Santa Clara, St. Mary's, San Diego and Pepperdine en route to a seventh place finish out of 28 teams.
The Dons improved on last year's 11th place finish, thanks in part to great races by sophomore Jose Madera (11th – 24:23) and senior Jeremy Grace (19th – 24:31).
"We had some very strong performances up front but obviously need to be tighten up our fourth and fifth positions to be a truly effective team," said head coach Helen Lehman-Winters.
Madera's 24:23 flirted with breaking his own school record of 24:17, which he set at last year's Bronco Invitational. He did break his personal record and the USF school record at Stanford of 24:30 from 2010.
The Green and Gold's scoring five runners nearly averaged of 25:00 over the 8K course on the Stanford Golf Course (25:01). A trio of seniors rounded out the scoring for the Dons, with Will Marquardt also breaking 25-minutes (39th - 24:50), Jesus Romo (58th - 25:20) and Thomas Estrada (87th - 26:00).
Each of the Dons' seven runners placed in the top half of the 242-man race. Timmy McManus was 108th at 26:15, and Michael Barnes was just behind him in 117th at 26:23. USF's Ganbileg Bor ran unattached and finished ninth with a personal best of 24:17.
The Dons placed second among WCC teams in the race, just 32-seconds behind Loyola Marymount's team-time.
Three USF women ran in the 278-runner Women's 6K race over largely the same course. An official scoring team requires five finishers, so they did not earn a team-place. USF senior, Nicole Bowler, who has exhausted cross country eligibility, was 20th in 21:20. Sophomore Sarah Pearson was 124th at 22:56, Junior Sahar Bala was 155th (23:14) and freshman Kailey Ulland was 217th (24:10).
Both the men's and women's teams have next week off and will be back in action on Friday, October 7 in Golden Gate Park at the San Francisco State Invitational at 2:30 PM.
