2010 Mills College Invitational Team Results
2010 Mills College Invitational Individual Results
Oakland, CA -- Competing in the Mills College Invitational Saturday morning, the Academy of Art University women's cross country team worked collectively to capture a 3rd place finish. Led by junior Cassandra Schumacher who took 6th with a personal best 20:08 on the 5k course, the Urban Knights topped several schools including Pacific West Conference Bay Area opponents in Notre Dame de Namur and Dominican.
“I was extremely impressed with the girls,” Head Coach Charles Ryan said. “Again, their performance bar continues to rise. This meet was a barometer for what they will see at PacWest championships and they competed well compared to last week. The course was pretty tough, but they took it well. We only had five runners due to injuries and those that ran did a really good job.”
Following Schumacher's top time, senior Irinel Zamfir crossed the line in 11th place with a time of 20:36. The third ART U finisher was freshman Kylie Long who took home 16th overall (21:04) and continues to progress each week according to Coach Ryan.
“Kylie's performance was much improved and it's exciting to see [the team] moving forward,” Coach Ryan said. “They are learning how to run as a group and Kylie especially is inching closer and closer to the top of that group. The gap between her and Irinel is getting smaller every week. It's definitely nice to see a freshman stepping in and competing like that.”
In 35th place, junior captain Stacey Toth turned in a time of 22:22 which mirrored the end result for junior Leticia Saldaña. While Saldaña logged 37th place overall, her 22:22 mark that matched Toth's was reminiscent of last week's one-second difference in finishes for the pair.
As a team, the Urban Knights earned 3rd place out of 11 teams in the Mills Invitational. Academy of Art University turned in a group average of 21:19 on the 5k course, effectively putting them ahead of Fresno, Holy Names, and the CCAA's Cal State Monterey Bay among others.
“[We] beat Dominican and NDNU, two of the PacWest conference teams, and were right behind Sonoma State again. It was a very good tune up meet for the Western Washington Invite where they'll see more conference opponents.”
The 2010 Mills Invitational was won by Whittier who placed all five of its runners in the top 10. However, the individual victor was Amanda Johnson from Fresno.
The next scheduled meet for the Urban Knights will be the San Francisco State Invitational back at Golden Gate Park on Oct. 8. Both ART U cross country teams will be in action beginning at 10:00 AM. When asked about what he would like to see from the women's team during the forthcoming three-week break between meets, Coach Ryan feels they are moving in the right direction.
“In my opinion, I would like to see more of the things they've been focusing on like using each other in races,” Coach Ryan said. “Cross country competitions are all about running as a group. For us, it's about getting that gap between the top three and bottom two to close. Teamwork is the biggest component that they have been improving on and continue to improve on.”
