Oct. 11, 2007

The Santa Clara cross country team will be hosting its only home meet of the season, the Bronco Invitational, this Saturday, October 13th at Baylands Park. In what has become the largest meet on the west coast this weekend, 24 women's teams and 18 men's teams will compete in three championship races.

"We've got some really top notch teams at both competitions," said head coach Tom Service. "There's a very good chance we could see some course records broken."

The Broncos have been gearing up for this event for a while now. "The team is really excited. We ran an incredibly fast workout on the course recently," said Service. "We'll definitely be competitive. I think it will be a real dogfight between five or six teams for both the men and women."

So far this season, the team has continued to be led by seniors Michael Delaurenti and Adriane Puetz, who have finished first for their respective teams in every race this year. And there fast times could get even faster now that they are this far into the season. "A lot of times, October is really when the season starts for some people," said Service. Most teams don't run their fastest times in September. It's October when the times really start to come down."

The Broncos are excited for this race and the opportunity to run in front of family, friends, and alumni, but also to get one more good race in before the WCC Championships. "This is the last race for most of our athletes before the WCC Championships," said Service. "Like all athletic events, distance running is very mental, and you want to come off a good race going into the WCC's."

This meet looks to be not only competitive, but fun as well. Before the actual events, there will be a 5k Fun Run for family, alumni, and others. Everyone is encouraged to participate. Then after the race there will be an alumni day with speakers, a recap of the season and an overview of the cross country program by former coach John Maloney. All this will be followed by lunch which, according to Service, "should be a pretty good picnic if the weather holds up."

The Fun Run will start at 8:15 a.m., followed by the first event of the day, the women's 5k open race, which begins at 9 a.m. Then the women's 5k invitational will go off at 9:45 a.m. The final race of the day will be the men's 8k invitational. All of this takes place at Baylands Park in Sunnyvale on Saturday, October 13.