among the Top-30-40 from the gun and ran a strong even effort throughout, while moving through the deep and talented field. As the race wore on, Brent found himself in VERY select company. A solid kick put 4 seconds on UC Davis' 5k school record holder Jonathan Peterson (14:03/3:45 credentials) and stopped the clock at a very swift 23:56 time.
Running a fine race of his own was RS Frosh Isaac Chavez (debuting for the 'Cats) who notched a Top-30 finish and sub 24:30 mark to begin his Chico State career. Adrian Sherrod, Alan Campos and Anthony Costales would round out the 'Cats scoring with 47th, 54th and 61st place finishes. RS frosh Alfonso Cisneros didn't score for the 'Cats but he did enjoy his best race ever while wearing the Wildcat jersey for the first time. His 25:08 mark is amazing progress for a young man who was the final runner to make the 'Cats roster a year ago (coming from McFarland HS). JC transfer Joseph Rivera struggled a bit but still ran a commendable 25:25 time while finishing 87th overall. Dayne Gradone, who was mentioned earlier, ran with just one shoe the entire race and still managed to finish in 25:35, although not before wearing a thick piece of skin completely off the underside of his foot. Donald Truesdell never fully recovered after the early fall and placed 125th overall, while teammate Manny Mejia also had an off day while finishing 145th overall respectively.
As the team scores were read and the sixth place finish was announced, the Wildcat fans could take pride in the number of solid Division I teams that the Chico boys had put behind them. Cal Poly SLO, UC Davis, UCSB, Long Beach State, USF, and a number of others all finished in arrears of this relatively unproven group of harriers. Their performance was also impressive in that most other teams who toed the line on Saturday were in their 2nd or 3rd race of the season. On this same token, we still have 10 weeks until the NCAA Championships, so there's much work to be done and a long way to go. Please find results below:
Women's 6K:
The Chico State women's team stepped into the 2010 Stanford meet knowing that a lot of very good teams would be present and that it would be as tough of a test as we'll see this season until the NCAA Championships. The Chico women have shown great depth of talent, but our fitness as a whole has some distance to go, and this showed on Saturday. Our 1-7 gap was well under a minute, but we lacked low #'s up front like many of the teams who managed to place ahead of us.
Leading the Wildcat pack on Saturday was Senior Kara Lubieniecki a 16:45 5k performer on the track and a two time All American. Kara and teammate Alia Gray spent much of the race operating side by side as they so often do. The pair got out fairly aggressively and did their best to work through the field as they were able. Gray spent much of the early summer recovering from a tough season ending injury that she sustained in March of the past tack season. Also running with Kara and Alia for much of the race was Shannon McVannel who was returning to action after red shirting the entire '09-'10 school year. The Junior from Salinas, looked solid for about 4-5k before she began to slide back through the field.
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