Sept. 26, 2001
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This Week
The San Diego State women's cross country team will be back in action this week when it travels to Palo Alto for the 28th-annual Stanford Invitational. Race time is set for Saturday at 4:50 p.m., at the Stanford Unversity Golf Course. Forty-six teams are scheduled to compete on the women's side including UC San Diego and USD.
About The Stanford Invite
Saturday's race will be the first 6,000-meter course the Aztecs have run this season. The course is mostly grass with some areas of dirt and short stretches of asphalt. The course has been the home of the District-8 Championships for six seasons and the Pac-10 Championships since 1972.
A Year Ago
SDSU finished 15th out of 21 teams at the last year's Stanford Invitational. The Aztecs' top finisher was Sophia Hawker who crossed the finish line 36th at 18:41. Kylie Edwards, fresh off her Mountain West Conference runner of the week performance at the Hawai'i Invite, ran the course in 19:20, finishing 71st. Invite host Stanford won the event with Washington, Kansas State, Wisconsin and Arkansas rounding out the top five. SDSU finished behind Southern Utah.
SDSU Lately
The Aztecs come off a 10th-place finish in a 25-team field at the UC Riverside Invite last Saturday. SDSU was led by junior Alicia Stewart, who placed 29th with a time of 19:34 and junior Jennifer Stakiw's 30th-place finish of 19:35. The scarlet and black got its 2001 campaign started with an eighth-place finish at the CSU Fullerton Jammin' Invitational on Sept. 1. The Aztecs were led by junior Jennifer Stakiw, whose time of 19:43.30 was good for 42nd-place, and Allison Brown's time of 20:22.40, which earned her 69th-place.
Aztec Invite Canceled
The 58th annual Aztec Invitational, scheduled for Sept. 16 in Balboa Park, was canceled due to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington D.C. and will not be rescheduled. The event was the Aztecs' lone home contest of the season. The team will get a chance to compete in San Diego, with UC San Diego holding its invite on Oct. 13.
Coaching Staff
The Aztecs are led by the coaching staff of Rahn Sheffield and Jennifer Nanista. A 1990 graduate of SDSU, Nanista is one of the best middle distance runners to don the scarlet and black. She finished second in the 800 meters at both the 1989 and '90 Big West Conference Championships. She continues to compete as a member of the Sheffield Elite Track Club.
Looking Ahead
The Aztecs get the October portion of its schedule underway on the sixth when they travel to the Long Beach Invitational. On Oct. 13 the team will be in action at the UC San Diego Invite, before heading to Albuquerque, N.M. for the Mountain West Conference championships on Oct. 27.