Results

BREA, Calif. - Sophomore Hannah Chau had a top-10 finish to lead the UC Irvine women's cross country team to a seventh-place showing at the season-opening Mark Covert Classic Saturday at Carbon Canyon Regional Park.
 
"Our women's team as a whole is very young; our second, third and fourth finishers were all freshmen eligibility-wise," said first-year distance coach Casey Kear. "We definitely had some nerves before the race and it showed early on, but they got settled in and ran really well."
 
Chau had an impressive performance, placing sixth out of 199 overall runners, and fourth among collegiate athletes. She completed the 5000-meter course in a personal-record 18:05.8, cutting over 24 seconds off her previous best.
 
"Hannah had a great race; she ran really relaxed and controlled the whole way," Kear said. "She has more in the tank, but to start the season ahead of where she started last year, especially with the heat, just shows she had a great summer of training and is ready to have a phenomenal season."
 
Freshman McKenna Paulson was the Anteaters' second finisher, coming in 41st with a time of 19:26.3. Classmates Elizabeth Celada Padilla (19:31.6) and Claire Livengood (19:32.9) were 45th and 46th, respectively.
 
Sophomore Patricia Sanchez, who did not compete in cross country last year, rounded out UCI's scorers (19:43.8), while senior Brenda Dorantes (19:44.1), freshman Cathy Salazar-Gasca (19:52.6), freshman Cammie Martinez (19:53.9) and senior Anastasia Karnaze (20:14.9) were not far behind.
 
Up next for UC Irvine is a trip to the Inland Empire for the UC Riverside Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 14.