Cal Poly's Sierra Brill, UC Santa Barbara's Nick Randazzo are individual winners in marquee races in preview of Big West Championships on Ag-Ops Course

By Landon Negri for DyeStat

By returning to the UC Riverside Invitational in a year in which the Big West Championship will be contested on the same Ag-Ops course, Cal Poly came back to the party Saturday morning.

The celebration, though, wasn’t just for the Mustangs.

Making the short trip up Magnolia Avenue and then across town on Martin Luther King Boulevard, Cal Baptist University enjoyed a celebration of its own.

RESULTS | INTERVIEWS

Cal Poly’s men and Cal Baptist’s women came away with team titles Saturday at the 39th UC Riverside Invitational, with UC Santa Barbara junior Nick Randazzo and Cal Poly junior Sierra Brill winning individual invitational championships on a hot and dusty morning on the Ag-Ops dirt layout.

Saturday’s meet took on added importance as it served as a defacto conference preview meet. The Big West Championships are Nov. 2 at UCR and six conference teams – Cal State Fullerton being the most notable exception after competing Friday in San Diego – were on hand Saturday.

Cal Poly won on the men’s side with 43 points – all five scorers were inside the top 15 – to runner-up Cal Baptist’s 88 points and third-place UCSB at 97.

“We knew there were some good teams here,” said Cal Poly junior Jake Ritter, runner-up to Randazzo, who won the men’s invitational 8,000-meter race in 24 minutes, 1.9 seconds; Ritter ran 24:08.4.

“Southern Utah obviously was very good last year and UCSB is our rival, so we knew we had some competition.

“It was awesome to just get out there. We didn’t expect to win at all, but you know, we ran our hardest, and that came with it.”

The men’s race featured lead changes and position jostling with Randazzo pulling away with about a kilometer remaining before the finish.

“Throughout the whole race, there was about, maybe four or five of us, just kind of switching the lead,” Randazzo said. “I just tried to stay conservative through it. I was just waiting for a time to go. It seemed on the one turn, some people didn’t take it too well, so I broke there and just tried to muscle my way home.”

Randazzo ran his record to 2 for 2 in season victories, as he won two weeks ago in the Lagoon Open at UCSB. Ritter was the runner-up there, too.

Following Ritter for Cal Poly were four freshmen. John Bennett placed sixth in 24:27.8, Elias Opsahl enjoyed a bit of a homecoming – he prepped at nearby Redlands East Valley – with a ninth-place showing in 24:35.7, while Anthony Benitez (16th, 24:41.8) and William Fallini Haas (18th, 24:44.9) rounded out the team’s scorers.

“It was nice to get a preview of the course,” Ritter said. “I know only two of our guys have run this course.”

Last year’s men’s winner, Kevin Lynch of Utah Valley, took the lead briefly around the 2-mile mark, but couldn’t hold it. He settled for third in 24:14.9, while teammate Geofrey Kemboi followed in fourth in 24:22.5.

“Last year, I was able to win, and my strategy was to basically pull away with two miles to go,” Lynch said. “I tried to do that again today, but (the pack) came with me this time. I guess they were expecting that. And I just kept trying to do that over and over and kind of break it up early on.

“They were stronger than I thought they were, so good respects to them,” he added. “They kind of passed me with 800 meters left, and I just didn’t have it on my legs.”

Former Glendale College and Cal State San Marcos standout Vahagn Isayan was fifth in 24:25.5. Southern Utah sophomore Thomas Grant was seventh in 24:32.2, former Loyola Marymount standout Koby Pederson, running unattached, was eighth in 24:32.5 and fifth-place Claremont Mudd-Scripps had its top scorer, sophomore Kyril van Schendel, place 10th in 24:36.9. McMarshall Hartzenberg was Cal Baptist’s first runner in 11th in 24:38.5.

While Brill and teammate Peyton Bilo finished 1-2 on the women’s side, Cal Baptist’s pack decided the women’s team race in favor of the defending Western Athletic Conference champion.

Cal Baptist placed five in the top 10. Sophomores Emilie Renaud (20:25.2) and Anna Mate (20:26.1) finished third and fourth, respectively. Returning first-team, all-conference selection and senior Fruzsina Ladanyi was sixth in 20:34.9, while freshmen Marta Afonso (ninth, 20:41.8) and Andrea Kolbeinsdottir (10th, 20:42.5) completed the Lancers’ scorers.

It wasn’t Cal Baptist’s meet, but Mate said she felt like it was a home game anyway.

“Yesterday, I slept in my own bed and I ate what I wanted I wanted to eat,” said Mate, who’s from Hungary. “That’s actually nice. I really like this course. Because in Europe in cross country, it is mostly grass. This is a really quick course.”

Renaud, who said she lowered her time from last year by 55 seconds, and Mate watched a dramatic finish in front of them.

Bilo had the late lead, but Brill put forth a final impressive surge to overtake her teammate in the last quarter-mile. It was Brill’s first collegiate individual victory.

“I was just thinking, ‘Lean into the pain, cycle through it, everyone else is hurting just as much as you, so make it hurt more,” Brill said. “I don’t know, that’s what helps me, leaning into the pain and just, like, remembering that’s why I run is to compete.”

Entering Saturday, Brill said her goal was a top-10 finish. That goal upticked, and fast, during the race, going from top 10, to top five, then top three in her head.

“I started to actually believe that I could go get Peyton with 400 to go,” Brill said.

Cal Poly, which ran without reigning conference champion Miranda Daschian, wound up third with 72 points. Defending meet winner Southern Utah, led by junior Alison Pray (fifth, 20:27.17), finished second with 54 points.

The Thunderbirds also placed three runners in the top 10 with senior Maddy Kauffman securing seventh in 20:36.6 and junior Madison Fruchey eighth in 20:37.6.

In the open division, former Cal Poly Pomona half-miler Casey Monoszlay, running unattached, outlegged Cal Coast’s Ashlee Powers and Sara Van Dyke to win the 5,000-meter race in 17:14.3.

On the men’s side, Cal Coast’s Bijan Mazaheri, training for next month’s Chicago Marathon, won the 8,000-meter race easily in 24:41.3, emerging victorious for the second straight year at the Ag-Ops course.