The Santa Clara men's and women's cross country teams competed Friday in Golden Gate Park at the Gator Invite hosted by San Francisco State. In favorable conditions, both teams had solid performances. The women placed 5th of 13 teams and the men placed 6th of 16. Host SF State won the men's title and WCC rival USF won the women's title.

Both teams will be at full strenght next week when Santa Clara hosts the Bronco Invitational at Baylands Park in Sunnyvale.

"This meet was an opportunity for our athletes that haven't raced in a few weeks to run against good competiton and sharpen up for the Bronco Invitational next week. I was pleased with how we competed today. Particularly, many of our freshmen men and women showed significant improvements," said Bronco head coach Felipe Montoro.

The women were led by junior Hayley Ney, who placed 14th and ran 23:14. Fellow Junior Erin Harwig had her best race of the year finishing in 23rd place in a personal best of 23:27. Freshman Amia Nash placed 35th running 23:56 for her first 6k. Fellow freshman Alex Garcia was next for the Broncos crossing the line in 24:05. Sophomore Jamie Anderson rounded out the scorers running 24:11 in 44th place.

Also competing for Santa Clara in the field of 135 were: Kayla Germany (48th) Meg Webber (55th), Meghan MacNamara (56th), Lauren Spears (58th), Audrey Hiatt (60th), Megan Murnane (64th), Monica Coen (74th) and Jenny Light (84th).

The men were led by freshman Tony Ferarri who placed 23rd in a personal best of 26:03 for the 8k course. Junior Marcos Hinojosa was right behind Ferarri running 26:10 for 25th. Junior Richard Zhu ran 26:26 and finished in 36th place. Senior Nhunguyen Le was next for Santa Clara (26:43) and freshman Sean Roe was the final scorer in 51st place (26:54).

Also running for Santa Clara in a field of 163 were: Travis Pederson (59th), Matt Wagner (70th), Gareth Morl (75th), Matt Savage (78th), Guadalupe Gonzalez (88th) and Andrew Gaddis (130th).