SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Santa Clara cross country had its men finish in ninth and women finish in 18th at the NCAA West Regionals on Friday. It was the men's highest finish ever at the meet.
Nicholas Russell led the men with a 26th place finish in 30:21.0, a personal best and program record. Also scoring were Zach Litoff (34th, 30:30.9), Ian Twyman (56th, 31:06.1), Ishaan Singh (126th, 32:31.2), and Jorge Estrella (132nd, 32:38.0). Kyle Johnson and Ian Kirk also raced. The times were personal bests for Litoff, Twyman, Singh, Johnson, and Kirk as well.
"We have never been top-10 in this meets history, so to finish 9th needs to be celebrated," Santa Clara head coach Felipe Montoro said. "While we definitely left a lot of points out there at the 4-5 spots, but our team rallied and held on over the last 2k to stay in ninth and hold off UCSB, Fullerton, and UCLA. I'm really proud of the entire team, those that competed today and those back home. They have bought into what we are doing and that makes so much easier."
The Broncos finished with a score of 372. Stanford took the team title with a score of 61.
Kieran Lumb of Washington took the individual title with a time of 29:28.5.
JJ Escalera had the top time for Santa Clara at 21:27.3, good for 79th. Abby Meck (82nd, 21:31.9), Kinsey Hall (97th, 21:45.3), Maiya Fujiwara (146th, 22:30.6), and Kaitlyn Twadell (173rd, 22:55.9) rounded out the score for the Broncos. Adelaide Vergnolle and Luciana Lenth also raced.
"I'm proud of our team for how we competed at regionals and how we competed this season," Santa Clara associate head coach Pete Cushman said. "We had to manage a lot of challenges this fall, but the women revealed their character and stayed together, remained resilient, and raced tough."
Santa Clara scored 580 points. Stanford won the team title with 65.
Julia Heymach of the Cardinal won the individual title at 20:01.1.
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