RIVERSIDE, Calif. - On Saturday morning at the UC Riverside Invitational, the Concordia University Irvine men's and women's cross country teams lined up against some of the best programs in the West Coast.

In the men's 8k invite race, freshman phenom Noah Plaza continues to make a name for himself running a blistering time of 24:46. Captain Juan Sebastian Garcia came in soon after establishing a new personal best of 24:50. Out of the 30 teams competing that featured squads across all levels, the Golden Eagles placed 18th while beating eight NCAA D1 programs.

The women's 6k invitational race saw captain Jori Paradis finish 30th in the field of 268 athletes with a time of 21:00, a new personal best. Maddie Jahshan was the next Golden Eagle to cross the finish line with a time of 21:31 which was nearly a minute faster than what she ran at this meet the year prior. The women's team battled hard to 15th place finish out of the 31 squads racing and were the second fastest NCAA D2 team of the meet.
 
To see the full CUI cross country schedule CLICK HERE.

CUI will be racing again on Saturday, Sept. 24 at 8:30 a.m. at the Cougar Challenge in San Marcos, Calif.