Results

SANTA ROSA, Calif. - Led by four runners placing in the top 11, the Cal State East Bay women's cross country team won the Sonoma State Invitational to post its second team victory of the season at Spring Lake Regional Park in Santa Rosa on Saturday. The Pioneers eked out a one-point win over Cal State Monterey Bay and beat out another CCAA team in the host Seawolves at the meet that served as a preview of the course for the 2011 CCAA Championships, to be held on Oct. 22 at Spring Lake. 

"A lot of credit to my coaching staff as they did a great job helping to prepare the athletes, but today was about teamwork," Head Coach Ralph Jones said. "We have been storming and our goal was to do a better job as a team and we accomplished that today." 

For the fourth time this season, Tiffany Duffy paced the Pioneers, finishing fifth overall with a time of 23:04. Duffy set the tone for East Bay's five scoring runners, each of whom posted a new season-best time on the 6k course. Duffy was closely followed by Amanda McNabb, who crossed the line just 16 seconds later to place seventh overall. Freshman Kaitlyn Smith returned to her early season form with a time of 23:27 to finish eighth.

Megan McDaniel was the Pioneers' fourth finisher, completing the course with her new season-best time of 23:46 to take 11th overall and put four East Bay runners in the top 11 in a field of over 60 competitors. Gabriella Cruz, who set a new personal best last week in Spokane, topped that time by nine seconds to clock a new season and all-time best of 24:08. Nastassia Hamor and Bernadette Lu were not far behind, rounding out the Pioneer contingent in 21st and 22nd. 

The Pioneers edged Cal State Monterey Bay, which also finished with three runners in the top 10 overall. The Otters' Piper Delaney was the top scoring runner, finishing third overall and 29 seconds ahead of Duffy. San Francisco State did not score with just three runners competing, but was led by top finisher Zuleima Jimenez, who completed the course in 21:57. Humboldt State also sent four runners, who finished 43rd, 44th, 49th and 54th overall. 

"This was a good test, but we know a lot of top teams in the conference did not compete here today," Jones said. "This was good for our confidence and gave us a benchmark as we prepare to come back here in three weeks for the 'real race.' We are just hopeful we can run this well against the teams in the upper echelon in the conference at the end of the month."

Among the six scoring teams, East Bay just beat out Cal State Monterey Bay by one point, 36-37, but finished 36 points ahead of Sonoma State and cleared fourth-place Holy Names by more than 80 points. Fresno Pacific and Dominican rounded out the six-team field in fifth- and sixth-place, respectively.

Cal State East Bay will look to keep building next weekend, when it travels to the Bronco Invitational at Santa Clara on Oct. 15. The Pioneers will be aiming to continue its success at the Bronco Invite, where it has finished third and second, respectively, in each of the last two years.