SPRINGFIELD, Ore. — McKaylie Caesar secured a new program record en route to placing third individually and leading Cal State Fullerton women's cross country to a third-place team finish while the men's squad took sixth Friday morning at the Bill Dellinger Invitational.
"What a phenomenal performance from McKaylie today," Cal State Fullerton assistant coach Alex Tebbe said. "Our women's team raced hard and I'm proud of the way they finished. The men were also right there until the end. Today's results put us in a great position heading into the rest of the season."
Caesar raced to a program-record 19:58.8 in the women's 6K contest to take home the bronze. With her finish, Caesar became the first Titan woman ever to finish a 6K race in under 20 minutes. She led the race at the final split before finishing third behind UC Davis' Sierra Atkins (19:53.4) and Portland's Laura Pellicoro (19:58.3).
Mia Bergman placed 20th for the Titans with a personal-best time of 20:53.4, while Eva Rethmeier also recorded a personal-best (21:05.8) to take 25th. Dana McGrath finished in 21:11.3 to place 26th and Nanette Novak notched a time of 21:16.8, good for 29th place. Olivia Ruiz (21:28.2; 36th), Ashlynn Viramontes (21:33.3; 40th) and Unique Ford (21:45.5; 47th) rounded out the Titans' top-50 finishers, while Amy Brown came in 53rd place with a time of 21:58.7.
As a team, the women's squad totaled 100 points, finishing behind meet-host Oregon (50) and falling to UC Davis (100) in a tie-breaker.
Alexis Garcia led the Titans in the men's 8K race with a time of 24:06.9, placing 18th overall. Andrew Castellon (24:33.5) and Tony Chavez (24:37.1) each recorded personal bests to take 32nd and 37th places, respectively. Talman Young finished 46th with a time of 24:45.5. Vicente Huerta (24:49.2) placed 49th while Jeremiah Castellano (24:52.7) placed 50th for the Titans.
The men's team garnered a combined 145 points to place sixth, as meet-host Oregon (39), Portland (62) and UCLA (63) finished in the top-three.
The Titans compete next at the Highlander Invitational on Saturday, October 15th, at the UCR Agricultural Operations Course in Riverside.
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