Although the San Diego State cross country team did not place as high as it hoped to on Friday, seven runners accomplished their best personal records of their college careers.

The Aztecs placed No. 14 out of 19 teams in the 5-kilometer race at the NCAA Inter-Regional Jamboree meet in Sacramento with a score of 339 points. The University of California, Los Angeles earned first place overall with 77 points.

SDSU’s highest-ranking runner was sophomore Chelsea Kruthers, who finished No. 42  with a time of 17 minutes and 44 seconds, beating her own personal record.

Sophomore Rachel Roesgen also broke her collegiate best by placing 65th overall with a time of 17:59.

Sophomore Laura Vazquez, who had missed the last race, returned to the action Friday and finished 69th out of 156 runners with a time of 18:06.

The Aztecs showed they are improving each race as the year progresses, and the good results are not a matter of luck, but rather hard work and new coaching philosophy.

[quote] “I am happy at where they are at and that the program will continue to get better and better,” assistant coach Chris Capeau said. “Being young, they don’t have a lot of older girls to be able to look up to as bigger universities do that they can just follow, so it’s just a step of building their confidence up and letting them see they can perform at that level.”[/quote]

The Lady Aztecs made a vast improvement from last season. However, Kruthers said the team still needs to work harder to improve its overall scores, and that even though she beat her personal record she is still hungry for more—her goal for this season is to run a 17:30 or faster.

“I did beat my own personal record,” Kruthers said. “I was very happy when crossing the finish line and seeing a time of 17:44 on the clock.”

Kruthers credits her success to the adequate training she had before the season began and to a more positive outlook on running in general.

“I decided before the season started that I was going to approach it with a more team-before-self attitude, so I just kind of went out there and just ran for my team,” Kruthers said.

Roesgen also achieved a personal goal when she lowered her time to less than 18 minutes.

“This season has been my breakout season, which is really nice,” Roesgen said. “My previous PR was around 18:45 and I ended up running 17:59, so I was very stoked about it.”

[quote]“I have more goals in mind and I know what exactly I’m going to do for all the next races. We are raising our bar, but our bar of excellence is higher,” Roesgen said.[/quote]

The Aztecs next meet is on Oct. 19 when they compete in the Highlander Invitational in Riverside.

Photo by Monica Linzmeier, Photo Editor