Cross Country teams travel west for California meet

The women’s cross country team traveled to Los Angeles on Saturday, Sept. 10 to compete in the ASICS/UC Irvine Cross Country Invitational and finished 10th place out of eleven teams.

Five members of the Bobcats were invited to attend the cross country meet at the University of California Irvine: sophomore Allison Lones, sophomore Ashton Passino, freshman Rebecca Shane, senior Kariss Ekstrom and sophomore Andrea Brynes were chosen to attend this weekend’s 5k tournament. The Bobcats departed from the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport at 10 p.m. on Wednesday and arrived at the Los Angeles International Airport near midnight. The team members stayed at Irvine College, which was just an hour drive from LAX.

Coming in first for the Bobcats was Lones, who finished in 43rd place with a time of 20:35, followed by Passino, who finished 55th with a time of 21:12. Crossing the finishing line after Lones was Shane, who came in 56th place and finished with a time of 21:16, and nipping at her heels was Ekstrom, who finished the 3.1 mile race with a time of 21:27 and 58th overall. Bringing up the rear was Byrnes who placed 61st with a finishing time of 22:09.

California Baptist came away winning the team race with a total of 59 points. The first place individual finisher of the race was Annie Lydnes from Ponoma-Pitzer College, who finished with a time of 18:17.

The Bobcats finished with 273 points, one place ahead of Soka University of America. Georgia College fell just 11 points short of Glendale Community College of Arizona who received 284 points at the tournament at UC Irvine.

There were about 800 runners that took part in the ASICS/UC Irvine Cross Country Invitational. The Bobcats were the only team representing the Peach Belt Conference at this meet, and were also the team that had traveled the farthest to attend.

The team did exceptionally well considering the layout for their course was changed the day of the race. The girls had to face the difficulty of running a course they were not familiar with.

“I think that was probably the hardest thing for me,” Passino said. “I was kind of confused, but it was still a pretty good race.”

Passino was only twelve seconds off from reaching her personal goal. “I wanted to break that 21 minute mark,” Passino said.

In addition to the meet, both the men’s and women’s teams spent a few days exploring Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, and San Diego on Thursday and Friday.

“I try to work in a few educational things,” Head Coach Joe Samprone said. “It’s an educational process as well as running.”

The teams took an architectural tour of the Getty Center Museum, as well as spending time at the beach, before getting down to business on Saturday, Sept. 10.

The women’s cross country team’s next meet will take place on Sept. 17 at the University of South Carolina at Aiken in Aiken, S.C.

Posted by JessicaHayman on Sep 15 2011. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.