RIVERSIDE, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's cross country team finished a solid fourth out of 24 teams, tops among Division III programs, at the UC Riverside Invitational on Saturday morning.
Division I San Francisco led the way with 45 points, followed by Division II Stanislaus with 93 and Division I UC Irvine with 104, followed by the Athenas with 125. Biola was fifth with 170, with Division I teams Sacramento State, UC Riverside, California Baptist, Southern Utah and Eastern Washington rounding out the top 10.
Individually,
Riley Capuano finished 10th out of 219 runners, finishing in 20:47.5, while
Elle Marsyla also broke 21 minutes with a 20:55.7 to come in 18th place.
Sadie Drucker was the third Athena across the line in 21:02.6, while
Sara Wexler and
Brannan Rosenfeld rounded out the CMS scoring with huge jumps up the Athena record books. Wexler came in 34th place with a 21:06.3 to move up to 10th place all time in CMS history for a 6K race, while Rosenfeld was right behind in 21:06.6 to place 35th at the meet, and 11th all-time for the Athenas.
Wexler's previous best in her career was a 21:55.2, set two years ago, as she knocked almost 50 seconds off her PR to move up from 36th in CMS history to 10th. Rosenfeld took over a full minute off of her previous best of 22:11.0 to jump up into 11th place for the Athenas.
The current CMS squad now has five of the top 11 times in program history, with Capuano standing in fifth, Drucker sixth, and Marsyla eighth.
Sally Gaskell and
Jie Yi Denise Chen also had big jumps into the top 20 in program history. Gaskell finished in 21:28.2 to move up to 17th, while Chen was a half-second behind in 21:28.7 to jump up to 18th place.
Olivia Backholm moved up to 26th with a 21:40.3, and
Emily Kendrick broke into the rankings in 31st place with a 21:49.5.
Hope Dragseth had her season debut in the 5K race at UC Riverside and recorded the 13th best time in CMS history with a 17:54.0, while
Kylie Brunelli now places 31st on the 5K list with a 18:13.2.
CMS will be back in action next weekend when it competes at the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational.
