Vera Ross led the Gator women’s cross country team with a time of 22:58 at the SF State Gator Invitational, a time that would have won the race last year.

“Vera ran great,” assistant coach Pete Cushman said. “The big deal about that is we ran Sundodger [Invitational], which is a traditionally fast course and all the women ran faster at our race.”

Placing close to Ross was Shannon Weston (16th) with a time of 23:33 followed by Tanya Ferreira, who placed 28th.

Courtney Wheeler (42nd, 24:53) and Vanessa Zuzuarregui (52nd, 25:16) also ran the women’s 6K at the invitational.

“Our women ran great,” Tom Lyons, the Gator cross country coach said. “Our top five ran an outstanding performance. I like the way things our going for our women’s team.”
Leading the way for the men was Scott Clark, who placed 34th with a time of 27:10. Placing 38th was Kyle Fujitsubo, who ran just 16 seconds slower than Clark.
Batbileg Bor, Max Fernandez and Crista Phillips didn’t compete Saturday.

“For the men we finished about what I thought we would,” Lyons said. “We were running without our top runners.”

The men’s team placed 6th out of the 8 teams that competed and the women placed 6th out of 11 at the Invitational.

“I really feel that we’ll be ready for conference in two weeks,” Lyons said.
The Gators will be traveling to Turlock next to participate in the CCAA championships on the campus of Cal State Stanislaus on Saturday, Oct. 20.