Men's Results | Women's Results
 
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – The NM State women's cross country team impressed with a third-place team finish while the Aggies' men's cross country team finished 16^th Saturday morning at the Highlander Invitational held at the UC Riverside Ag Ops Course.
 
NM State's women's squad boasted a quartet of top-25 individual finishers in order to best the other three WAC teams who competed in Saturday's meet.
 
MEN'S RACE | 8K
• With a field boasting nearly 300 runners, NM State posted a 16^th-place team finish by totaling 375 team points.
• The only Aggie runner who finished among the top 50 was Anekin Hetman. NM State's top finisher traversed the eight-kilometer course in a time of 24:56.6, placing 45^th in the process.
• Cole Shugart was NM State's second finisher of the morning, placing 56^th in a time of 25:06.0.
• NM State's final finisher in the top 100 was Micah Too who was clocked in a time of 25:30.0 to generate an 80^th-place finish. Matt Goddard (25:49.0) narrowly missed out on a top-100 finish, crossing the line in 104^th.
• Rounding out the Aggies' group of top-five finishers was Pedro Espinoza who came up with a 129^th-place finish. Espinoza covered the course in a time of 26:02.8.
• Running together, Nick Ortiz (26:18.1) and Dilan Sanchez (26:18.9) placed 147^th and 148^th respectively to round out NM State's scoring group.
• Other Aggies who raced Saturday morning included Anthony Molina (26:37.0, 169^th), Kayn Quinones (27:18.6, 208^th) and Zack Wilcox (28:33.8, 250^th).
• NM State was one of four WAC teams competing in Riverside. California Baptist captured the team title at the event while Grand Canyon came up with a third-place team finish. Dixie State placed 10^th.
 
WOMEN'S RACE | 6K
• The best WAC women's cross country team in Riverside Saturday morning was NM State. The Aggies placed third in the 25-team field, besting the likes of San Diego State (fifth), California Baptist (seventh), Grand Canyon (ninth), USC (12^th) and Dixie State (13^th).
• A pack of Aggie competitors helped set the pace along the six-kilometer course with Emily Stutesman leading the way. NM State's top finisher, Stutesman placed 12^th in a time of 21:01.9. That time was the best among all WAC competitors at the race.
• In all, four NM State student-athletes finished among the top 25. Maggie Gibbs (21:11.1) and Richelle Sandin (21:19.3) flew through the course to finish 17^th and 19^th respectively.
• Continuing to trend upward, Thobile Amon narrowly missed out on a top-20 finish as she covered the course in 21:25.8 – good for a 21^st-place finish.
• Thulisile Amon (22:23.0, 70^th), Mia Regan (22:41.7, 84^th) and Kayla O'Connell (22:55.2, 98^th) all finished in the upper half of the 262-woman field as well.

QUOTABLE | ASSISTANT COACH JOSEPH RATH
"The way the course runs, things really get narrow about 200 meters in. On the men's side, we had falls at the front of the group during that early stage so a lot of our group went down in those. They were basically in the back of the pack the whole time after that and had to work their way up. There were some positives in seeing some of our guys be able to recover and move up throughout the race, but we were just so far back from the falls early on that it was difficult to fully recover.

The women did a great job of getting off to a strong start and not falling victim to that narrow stretch early on. Getting Maggie Gibbs back in the fold for us helped out a ton, too. We learned we have a really strong four and we know if we can get a fifth to continue to improve over the next few weeks that bodes well for us on the women's side.

There are always little things you want to do a little better, but overall I feel like we did a really good job at competing. We looked back on what we did two weeks ago and were able to improve upon today on both sides. For us, it was really nice to have a chance to compete at the course where the WAC Championships will be held in two weeks. There are three very, very strong teams on the women's side and I think as a whole the field will be much stronger than what we saw today."
 
COMING UP NEXT
• In two weeks, NM State returns to Riverside, Calif., in order to take part in the 2021 WAC Cross Country Championships. The Aggies' men's and women's cross country teams will race on the same UC Riverside Ag Ops Course as they did Saturday morning on Saturday, Oct. 30.
 
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