ROMEOVILLE, Illinois - Saturday presented a very unique opportunity for members of the Concordia University Irvine men's and women's cross country teams.
About 20 runners were able to travel to the Chicago area to represent the Green and Gold against stiff competition in the Lewis Crossover Invitational.
In fact, this event included eight schools with nationally-ranked teams on the men's side, and 11 women's teams ranked nationally as well. Concordia was joined by fellow west coast NCAA DII schools Biola, Western Oregon, and Cal State San Marcos out in Illinois.
On the men's side, six of CUI's top seven finishers placed in the top 100.
Hector Arteaga turned in a Top-40 finish and
Angel Aguirre was a few paces behind him. That duo was followed by
Juan Sebastian Garcia and upperclassmen
Joshua Scheetz and
Jacob Dunagin to round out the scoring five for the Green and Gold.
For the women,
Jori Paradis crossed the finish line as a member of the Top 50, with
Porshe Eismann just a few paces behind her.
Adriana Gil was the third Eagles to complete the course, followed by
Maddie Jahshan.Â
Angelique Antonini and
Alana Hurley were within ten seconds of Jahshan.Â
Madison Templeman rounded out the top seven for CUI, just ahead of
Katelyn Wilson.
In the team standings, both Concordia squads finished in the Top 15 on the day out of about 25 schools that competed in each race.
The CUI women's XC team was recently picked No. 6 in the regional rankings as announced by the USTFCCCA for the NCAA DII West Region.
The CUI women have been ranked regionally for the past four weeks.
CLICK HERE for the full CUI women's cross country schedule and
CLICK HERE to also see results of this race and previous races on the men's side.
