The Santa Clara men were aiming for a top 10 finish at the Stanford Invitational on Saturday and that's exactly what it finished - 10th. The women finished 19th in the race won by Stanford on the men's side and on the women's side. Santa Clara continues to run in the Bay Area next weekend when it races at Crystal Springs on Oct. 6 in Belmont, Calif.
"There were some encouraging things out there today, and we learned a lot about what we need to work on," said Bronco head cross country coach Felipe Montoro. "Our top three men did a great job of engaging the race and putting themselves in the positions they need to be in early and the ran really tough. If we want any chance at competing with Gonzaga, USF and LMU at WCC's we need to find consistency in the 4-7 positions, and that is something we have not been able to do yet. Luckily we still have some time to find out who will step up and be those guys for us.
For the men, Kevin Oliver paced the Broncos by finishing the 8K in 27th place at 25:06. Ben Demaree, racing for the first time this season in a Bronco uniform, was 32nd at 25:11. Bryan Crook was third for SCU in 52nd place at 25:35. Moises Venegas was fourth in 95th place at 26:21 and freshman Adrian Hinojosa was 133rd at 26:53. Not scoring, but finishing in 140th place, freshman Sam Holeman ran a 26:59 and Ezana Tesfu finished in 148th place at 27:10.
"Overall, I thought our women could have run better. That being said, we were significantly better this year than we were last year at Stanford, so we are moving in the right direction," said Montoro. "Our spread from 1-5 was great, only 37 seconds. However, we were to tentative as a group early and did not get our hard enough. The women had to work really hard to move up through such a large field. Many were a little flat and tired today given the recent workload, so I am really looking forward to seeing how much we can improve at the Bronco Invite in a few weeks."
Mary Kriege was the top women's finisher at 22:20, finishing in 63rd place. Freshman Kate Yanish was 94th at 22:42 to finish second for the Broncos. Kayla Germany was third at 108th place, finishing in 22:52. Hayley Ney (110th, 22:55) and Lauren Germany (112th, 22:57) rounded out the scoring for the Broncos. Also running at the Stanford Invite for the women were Mary Reynolds, who finished in 126th place at 23:09 and Allison Maio in 127th place at 23:10.
