Sept. 13, 2008
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State cross country trio of Rachel Williams, Kristin Glen and Michelle Martinez established lifetime bests for a 5,000-meter course to lead SDSU at the 64th annual Aztec Invitational Saturday morning at Balboa Park. In addition to the threesome, the Scarlet and Black received two Aztec career-best efforts and a pair of seasonal-best performances against a strong field that included perennial powers Northern Arizona, UC Santa Barbara and Azusa Pacific.
Running in its first meet since Aug. 30 and its first since junior newcomer Alma Escobar went down with an injury, San Diego State went into its annual home meet without its top runner in Escobar. The Concordia University transfer suffered a broken foot following her team-leading effort at the Fullerton Season Opener and her return this season is questionable. However, her Concordia teammate, Williams, picked up the slack and turned in a lifetime-best time of 18 minutes, 39 seconds, to finish in 24th place. Williams, who was running on the 5K Balboa Park course for the first time in her career, posted her second straight top-25 finish of 2008.
Glen, meanwhile, completed the course in 18:52 to finish in 39th place and establish a lifetime best by 21 seconds. Prior to the meet, Glen's personal record occurred last season at the Cougar 5K Challenge when she posted a time of 19:13.
The third of the aforementioned trio, Martinez, improved upon her season-opening time by more than 36 seconds and was more than two seconds faster than her previous PR of 19:15.20 (2007 UC Riverside Invitational) by navigating the course in 19:13.
Rounding out the Aztec top five were Sara Beyers and Darien Buc, who completed the race in 19:38 and 19:52, respectively. Coming in sixth for SDSU was Kelly Oelschlager, who recorded an Aztec career best (19:57) with Andrea Norton following suit with her Aztec career-best time of 20:05. Finishing one second behind Norton was Anne Vieira at 20:07 (season best), to finish with the team's eighth-best performance.
Overall, San Diego State finished in 14th place while competing on a course that ranks as the toughest for the Aztecs to date.
SDSU returns to action Saturday, Sept. 20, when it races at the Big Wave Invitational in Honolulu, Hawaii. The 4K competition is set for 7:50 a.m. HT.