2011 San Francisco State University Invitational Men's Team & Individual Results
2011 San Francisco State University Invitational Women's Team & Individual Results
Photo Gallery (images by Austin McKeon & Jessica Rankin)
San Francisco, CA -- With the Blue Angels roaring overhead for Fleet Week, the Academy of Art University men's and women's cross country teams flew through the 25th edition of the San Francisco State University Invitational. For the second consecutive year, senior
Amos Maru captured first place overall for the Urban Knight men who finished 7th of 14 teams at Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park. Junior
Kristen Sanzari earned 27th to lead the way for the women.
“This is the first of two tune-up meets before the conference championships,” head coach
Charles Ryan. “The team has had some weekends off so this is all about the final stretch run leading up to the championships. I think assistant coach Ben DeLand has been doing a great job with the crew overall. They seem excited to make the push to conference. Amos winning meet was definitely a big deal so I'm proud of him for that. Dave did well and he wants to beat Amos more than anything so we certainly have two strong runners heading into conference.”
Maru and senior
Daveson Marindich continued to post solid results at the top of the ART U men's squad. Maru not only won the race outright with a time of 24:35.6, but he also nearly topped his career best on an 8k course set last year at Stanford (24:33). In addition, Maru significantly improved on his run at the SF State Invite in 2010 by over 20 seconds.
Marindich followed closely behind his teammate and took home a 2nd place finish after his 25:30.2 mark. Senior
Simon Mutai turned in his second best finish of the season (31st), sporting a 26:47.2. Adding to a strong Knights unit, freshman
Jack Nevins placed 39th overall with a time of 27:06.2. Freshman
Chris Gutierrez clocked in at 28:47.3, crossing the line in 63rd place.
SFSU won the team competition. As a squad, Academy of Art finished ahead of Cal State Stanislaus, UC Santa Cruz, and even Division I San Jose State, among others.
For the third consecutive race in 2011, Sanzari placed as the number one ART U finisher. She took 27th overall by way of her 23:38.6 time. This was the first 6k race run by the women in San Francisco after the year-opening USF Invitational was a 5k. Supporting Sanzari was sophomore
Kylie Long in 56th (26:15.2) senior
Stacey Toth in 60th (26:50.8).
The fourth finisher for Academy of Art was sophomore
Heather Castro in 74th with a time of 30:54.1. Senior
Jazmin White rounded out the Knights five with her 32:33.5 mark and a 77th individual result.
Division I University of San Francisco captured the team title on Friday afternoon with Alice Baker winning the race outright. Her time of 21:53.2 was over 10 seconds better than the next closest finisher. In 10th, ART U was ahead of Mills College, Pacific Union, and fellow Pacific West Conference member Notre Dame de Namur.
Academy of Art cross country has its fourth and final non-conference race, the 2011 Santa Clara Bronco Invitational, next weekend. The women's race is scheduled for 9:45am and the men follow at 10:30am at Baylands Park in Santa Clara, CA.
