Amid the 104-degree weather in Riverside over the weekend, the men’s cross country team placed ninth out of 29 teams in the 8,000-meter, while the women’s side placed 16th of 23 teams in the 6K at the UCR Invitational.
Sophomore Kevin Ramirez placed 30th out of 239 runners and achieved his personal best (25:00.7) by improving 1:08 from his first race of the season two weeks ago.
“It’s on target for the kind of work they’re doing,” head coach Andy Sythe said. We’re striving to do better every week.”
Four other 49er men placed in the top-100: redshirt junior Cameron Pantoja (25:17.2) placed 44th, sophomore Sam Bautista (25:24.3) placed 49th, junior Tim Bergstrom (25:39.9) placed 68th and sophomore Andres Velasco (25:58.7) in 85th.
Bautista improved by 1:13 and Velasco by 45 seconds; both finished with personal best records.
Although Sythe sees improvement in his team after every meet, he explained that a 15-30 second gap between the first and last runner is the goal to meet.
The 49ers’ last runner (Velasco) finished 58 seconds behind Ramirez. They would just need to minimize that difference by 30 seconds.
The women’s team finished in 16th place out of 23 teams. Sophomore Kathleen Dunne was the 49ers’ top runner, coming in 64th with a time of 22:35.3.
Three other 49er women placed in the top-100: Sophomore Ashley Carrera (22:40.1) placed 72nd, freshman Mikayla Florez (22:47.9) placed 81st and Alexandra Lathos (22:57.7) placed 95th.
LBSU will travel to Northern California in two weeks on Sept. 27 for the Stanford Invitational.