The Men’s and Women’s Cross Country teams competed in their home opener today at the SF State Quad Meet in Golden Gate Park, placing first and fourth respectively.

The women fielded a young squad of five runners led by Freshman Samantha Lopez who finished 17th overall with a time of 23:24. Morgan Gilmore, freshman, finished two spots back in 19th with a time of 23:42 and was closely followed by Sophomore Myha Castro who finished 23rd in the 5800m race with a time of 24:50.

“It’s always fun to race on our home course,” Assistant Coach Sam Ahlbeck said. “This was a good opportunity to let all of our newer racers get a chance to really see the course and understand it.”

The Gators earned 107 points with a team time of 2:04:11 and an average time of 24:50.20. The women take action again next Saturday at the Stanford Invitational.

The men opened up their season with a strong performance, finishing first on 40 team points, and were led by Sophomore Drew Feldman who took second place overall with a time of 23:11. Santa Clara’s Bryan Crook edged out Feldman to earn first overall with a time of 23:06.

“Individually I’d say it was a good race for me.” Feldman said. “Originally I was going to go out and run a couple laps and see how I felt and decide whether or not I wanted to finish the race because my knee has been hurting, but it turned into a pretty good race.”

The Gators ended the 7260m race with three top ten finishers. Michael Garaventa took 6th place with a time of 23:29 and Benji Pacedo finished 9th in 23:38. SF State placed three more runners in the top 20 with Kenny Trejo taking 11th in 23:51, Logan Smith right behind at 12th in 23:52 and Andrew Selevos in 18th with a time of 24:04.

“We were hoping the pace would be sort of even, and luckily the whole pack went the first lap,” Head Coach Tom Lyons said. “Everybody was together and that’s how we wanted our first race to go.”

The Gators will head to St. Paul, Minn. for the 30th Annual Roy Griak Invitational next Saturday. Both the men and the women will run the Golden Gate Park course twice more, once at the SF State Invitational and once more for the CCAA Championships.