SAN DIEGO - Cal State Fullerton cross country had strong performances on both the men's and women's side at the USD Invite on Friday night at at Tecolote North Shores Park in San Diego. Trinity Ruelas won the women's 6K to lead the team to a runner-up finish while Jacob Smith won the men's 8K, also leading the team to a runner-up finish.
Arizona State won the women's competition with 28 points while CSF had 41 in second place and San Diego had a nice tally of 69 in third place.
On the men's side, ASU won with 29 points, Fullerton had 32 in second place and San Diego took third with 60 points.
"Trinity and Jake ran really strong races," head coach John Elders said. "Trinity took charge in the middle of the race and just destroyed everybody, really. She put the hammer down and just ran away from the field. Jake's race was a bit different, there was a huge gap together for the first half of the race. Then Jake and three others broke away from that group and Jake pulled away a bit and really closed well with a half mile to go to secure the win."
Ruelas cruised to victory, defeating the second-place runner by roughly 14 seconds. She clocked a 6K time of 21:48.1 to secure the win. McKaylie Caesar was the next Titan to cross the finish line as she took seventh place overall with a time of 22:30.2. Alyssa Block was eighth at 22:32.8, Sandra Flores was ninth at 22:37.4 and Demi Marine was the fifth scorer for the squad at 23:09.0.
Smith won by roughly five seconds as he clocked an 8K time of 25:45.6 to secure the win. Erik Gonzalez's time of 26:11.5 was good for fifth place overall while Anthony Alfaro took sixth at 26:14.6. Eric Jimenez was ninth overall with a time of 26:26.4 and Jorge Sanchez was the fifth and final scorer with a time of 26:41.7 that was good for 11th place overall.
"Overall, it wasn't our A game on either side but we had some strong individual performances," Elders said. "We just didn't quite have the same energy that we did at the (Mark) Covert Classic. We got some stuff to work on but overall it was a positive meet for us. We're looking forward to training for a couple weeks to get ready for Mustang Challenge and a big meet at Notre Dame."
Next time out, the Titans will compete in the Mustang Challenge on Sep. 28 at Central Park in Santa Clarita, Calif.
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