ROMEOVILLE, IL - This past weekend we divided our forces between two meets on opposite sides of the country. Our 'top-7' flew out to Chicago to take on stacked fields at the Lewis Crossover Invite. The remaining roster (including red shirts) competed more locally at the SF Invite in Golden Gate Park. Both groups had solid showings, with the strongest efforts produced by the Chico A women's victory in a 36 team field at Lewis, and the Chico 'B' Men's performance at SF, where the 'Cats put 10 among the top-20 by the end of the race (including red shirts) while taking a decisive victory over A teams from around the state. Our SF women also had an impressive day, taking 3rd at San Francisco while defeating A squads from Humboldt, East Bay, Azusa, and a number of other universities.

The Chico A men's disappointing 4th place finish at Lewis (out of nearly 40 teams) is a good example of where our expectations are as a program. The Wildcat men went into Lewis ranked 8th nationally, but lost to several teams (including regional foe Western Washington) ranked just outside the Top-10 in the nation. Post race, the Lewis crew headed northward to spend Saturday night in Kenosha, Wisconsin and on Sunday morning enjoyed a long run over the hilly NCAA Championship course at UW Parkside. Overall, we enjoyed another productive and successful weekend of competitions as we wrap up our regular season schedule. Please find short recaps of each race below:

Lewis Crossover Invite:
Women's 6k:

The Lewis meet is a product of the (relatively) new NCAA qualifying system. To quickly explain: There are 8 regions in the NCAA. The top 3 teams in each regional championship qualify to NCAA's automatically. Teams that finish 4th, or 5th, or even lower in their regionals, have a chance to qualify for NCAA's via an At Large process, BUT you need to have competed well during the regular season against teams from outside your region. Several years ago our women tied for 3rd in the regional and won the tie-break by .2 seconds. The team we tied with hadn't competed outside the region during the regular season, and thus didn't earn any at large points, and failed to make the NCAA field. Had we lost the tie-break our eventual 13th place NCAA finish wouldn't have happened. Circling back to the origin of the Lewis meet.. It's named the "Crossover" meet because they're trying to attract teams from all regions to compete to paint a clearer picture for the eventual NCAA selection process.

The Chico women went into the weekend ranked 15th nationally, and probably 5th or 6th in the Lewis field, based on most recent NCAA polls. Our goal was to focus on being composed in what was a highly competitive and Deep field (350 runners). It was certainly a shot in the arm to have top runner Iresh Molina hop into a uniform this week, after contemplating red shirting and running unattached the first several meets. It's a long story, but there's a decent chance that the NCAA will be changing some rules next year, that would allow Iresh to compete Both this year And next, while finishing out her 5 years of schooling. More on this later.

The women enjoyed their best team start of the year, and it was valuable given the sheer number of athletes in the field. By the mile mark Iresh was running among a lead pack of around 15-20, and Paulina Martins and Megan Malloy followed not too far behind. Trailing Martins and Malloy were our remaining 4 women, running in a group together and looking strong.

At mid race the lead pack had predicably splintered and Iresh ran in 3rd overall leading a chase pack that had been gapped by the eventual 1st and 2nd place finishers. Megan Malloy had moved into a top-20 spot, and Martins looked strong just a few meters back. Roommates/teammates Sienna Bianchi, Olivia Beschorner, and Jasmine Fletcher were joined by Kira Forsberg, and the four would run the entire race within 10-12 seconds of one another.

Iresh would lose a kick to NCAA 10k 3rd placer Paige Mullen (Pitt St), but would start the 'Cats scoring with a 4th place finish. Megan Malloy had her best race of the season to date with an 11th place effort. Paulina fought hard to the finish and crossed the line 18th. Now the key to the 'Cats eventual victory was the quartet of Sienna Bianchi, Kira Forsberg, Olivia Beschorner and Jasmine Fletcher, who all finished inside the top 50 overall, and ahead of every other team's #4! Lewis is the largest DII invitational in the country so it was quite an honor for our women to grab the title.

Lewis Crossover
Men's 8k:

As mentioned previously in the write-up, the Chico men went into the weekend ranked 2nd of those competing, behind Colorado Christian, but in a field with around 10 nationally ranked teams. The Chico men really didn't help their chances from the gun as they were absolutely buried as they ran by yours truly at 600m into the race. Mario Giannini was most likely the lone Wildcat who ran among the top 100 at the half mile point, and with 400 men in the field this wasn't a day for conservative starts.

Mario's race was certainly the shining part of the men's day as he battled with a talented lead pack that included Colorado Christian's Mathew Storer who's finished 3rd and 4th in the past 2 editions of the NCAA XC Championships. Mario led the lead pack through stretches of the first half of the race, and looked very good throughout. He would lose contact with Storer and eventual champion Ramon Rodriguez from Tiffin late, but held on nicely for a 3rd place finish.

The 'Cats effort from the outside looked like a team that knew they were buried, went to work in the second mile, made up places as a whole, but then realized that they were still outside the positioning that they'd hoped to be in, and struggled to sustain momentum over the second half. Several of the men complained of being sick during the race, so there may have been more at play, but overall it was a rough outing for the guys. The 'Cats #7 runner (coming into the weekend) Alex Lamoureux looked the best (outside of Mario) throughout, as he methodically moved his way eventually up to a 63rd place finish as the 'Cats 5th scorer. Alex' efforts were key in holding off Pitt State and Florida Southern, who both finished within 2 points of us in the team scoring. For the guys this was a rough day, BUT having finished 4th, it did earn us valuable At-Large points, should we end up outside the top-3 in November's regional.

San Francisco State Invitational (Golden Gate Park)
Friday October 10, 2025

Men's 8k:

As mentioned previously, the Chico men really did some work in this one, but before diving into some of the stats I'd like to shout-out assistant coach Scott Kruetzfeldt, who did an outstanding job of getting the SF crew prepared to race (and to the meet), while yours truly was on the road in Illinois. Before heading down, the message to the squads competing in SF was that they had a unique opportunity to run as scoring teams, against regionally ranked opponents. On the men's side APU and Concordia went into the weekend ranked 9th and 10th regionally, and there were also A squads from fellow CCAA members Stanislaus, East Bay, and Humboldt present. This was indeed a nice opportunity for the 'Cats.

After a controlled opening mile the 'Cats went to work and collectively moved really well throughout the race. Leading the way was true frosh Jackson Stream who was chasing some fast front runners from Stanislaus and Concordia. Stanislaus' (eventual champion) Jackson Oliviera recently ran 23:57 at UC Riverside, and Concordia's top guy Noah Plaza had run 23:47 in the same race. Stream battled Oliviera's twin Mason for much of the run, before settling for a fourth place finish.

A race inside the race was certainly one in trying to make our eventual 10-man roster for the upcoming CCAA Championships, as our top-4 guys in uniform finished within 8 seconds of one another. As mentioned previously the 'Cats poured 10 athletes across the finish (counting red shirts) among the top 20 overall.

While not scoring true frosh Jackson Stream, the 'Cats still defeated ranked regional teams APU and Concordia 45-70-77.

Another impressive stat with this run. In 2015 SF State hosted CCAA's on the same GGP layout. On that day the final All CCAA runner ran a time of 25:14. Today the 'Cats had 5 guys run within 1 second of this mark, or faster!

Women's 6k:

Despite resting their top-6 from their most recent meet in Riverside, Stanislaus' women held most of the top spots in the first mile of the women's 6k in SF. Concordia (Ranked 6th in the region) ran in second in the early team scoring, and the Wildcats ran similarly as the men had earlier, spotting the front runners a bit of space early, before doing some big work in the tougher parts of the race. Leading the way throughout for the 'Cats was RS Frosh Isabel Rosales, who would eventually move up for a 7th place overall finish. Isabel's strong close moved her to within 2 seconds of Stan State and East Bay's top finisher on the day. Isabel's finish time (22:03) was also under the final All CCAA time posted in the '15 championships on the same course.

Catherine McGuire, Grace Reed, Kaya Scuba, and April Anguiano ended the 'Cats scoring with Anguiano taking 25th in the 150+ runner field.

Sixth ranked (region) Concordia-Irvine would take the win with 42 points, while Stan's B squad would place 2nd with 67. The Wildcats claimed 3rd with 84, while finishing ahead of East Bay, APU, Humboldt, SF State, and more.

Next Up:

Up Next: The Wildcats host the 2025 CCAA Championships on Friday Oct. 24 at Hooker Oak Recreation Area in Bidwell Park.
Women's race starts at 10:00am, Men follow at 11:00am.

Chico's men carry a 22 year win streak to the line, while the women have won the past 2 editions and 18 of the past 22.

We hope to see many of you there!