Men's Results | Women's Results
DAVIS, Calif. –It was a historic day on Friday at the Wildhorse Golf Club, as the Cal State Fullerton men and women cross-country teams bring home two individual titles for the first time in school history. SR Trinity Ruelas became the first female to win a Division I cross-country Big West Individual Championship for Cal State Fullerton. Ruelas covered the 6k course in a time of 20:09.0 to secure the victory and lead the women's team to a second-place finish with a score of 60 points (1-8-11-18-22).
(Heather Killeen-Frisone finished second in 1992; Samantha Huerta finished second in 2018 and 2019.)
Dana McGrath clocked in a new personal best 6k time of 20:49.8 after moving up five places in the last two kilometers to finish second for the team and eighth overall. The next scorers for the women consisted of SO McKaylie Caesar who finished 11th overall in a time of 20:53.5, FR Eva Rethmeier who finished 18th in a time of 21:20.0, and FR Mia Bergman who finished 22nd in a time of 21:39.1.
In the end, the women of UC Davis won the team title with 27 points while Cal Poly finished third with 79 points.
On the men's side, SR Sammy Ayala made history again as he claimed the men's 8k individual title and set a new course record after running a time of 23:34.5. Sammy becomes the second male in school history to win a Division I cross-country Big West Individual Championship after Mike Tansley who claimed the title back-to-back in 1992 and 1993. SO Alexis Garcia (23:58.6) and FR Jeremiah Castellano (24:38.1) both ran new personal bests as they finish 4th and 17th overall. SR Jacob Smith (24:39.6) and FR Andrew Castellon (24:46.4) round out the top five scorers for Fullerton, as they finished 19th and 23rd overall.
The men's team finished third overall with a score of 64 points (1-4-17-19-23) behind UCSB (38) and Cal Poly (50).
"We came here and competed, earned a couple of individual titles, which was great. As a whole, the team left everything on the course, not mad about that. A lot of the young people learned lessons, they learned how to race, they learned how to grind even when the course was tougher than expected. I think we had a young team that learned a lot and I am excited for what the future holds for this program."
You can watch the recap of both races as they will air on ESPN+ on Friday November 5th at 12:00PM PST.
The Titans will be back in action on Friday November 12th to compete in the NCAA West Regionals in Sacramento, Calif. at Haggin Oaks Golf Course.
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