RIVERSIDE — Amanda Moreno led the Gauchos to a top-five showing at the UC Riverside Cross Country Invitational. UCSB’s 116 points placed them fourth out of the 27 teams in the women’s race.
Moreno’s time of 17:29.9 over five kilometers was good for 12th place individually. She was closely followed by teammate Katie Voigtlander, who took 13th at 17:29.0.
“Solid team performance with even-paced racing,” was the assessment of Gaucho assistant coach Avery Blackwell.
“They moved up during the race, which we’re really proud of. We had good grouping and I’m excited to see what we can do at Conference in a few weeks.”
The Gaucho men’s team sent out a B-squad, electing to rest the starters in preparation for next week’s Stanford Invitational. They still managed to place 12th out of 30 teams, with Doug Whichard as the top individual at 42nd place. He completed the eight kilometers in 25:20.9.
UC Riverside took the victory in the women’s team scoring with 89 points. No. 25 BYU was second with 98 points, followed by Azusa Pacific (106), UCSB (116) and Loyola Marymount (122) to round out the top-five. Azusa Pacific’s Jacky Kipwambok was the winner of the race with a time of 16:29.4, which is a new course record.
No. 12 BYU won the men’s race with 23 points, placing five runners in the top seven. UC Riverside was second with 73 points, followed by Southern Utah (131), Loyola Marymount (156) and Cal Poly Pomona (177) to round out the top-five. BYU’s Miles Batty was the winner of the men’s race with a time of 24:17.1.
Next week the Gauchos will compete at the Stanford Invitational.
