Front Rush

Friday, September 4

Riverside, Calif.

6:00 pm

California Baptist University

Lancer Invitational (6K)

Photo by: Jacob Gonzalez

9/4/2015 10:21:00 PM | Men's Cross Country, Cross Country, Cross Country & Track

By: Jake Zalesky, Sports Information Graduate Assistant

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — When it comes to California Baptist University men's cross country, excellence follows. The Lancers have won four-straight PacWest Championships and qualified for the NCAA Division II Championship Meet as a team the past two years.

The dominance was evident Friday night at the Lancer Invitational as the Lancers had 11 of the top 15 finishers and beat out their competition by almost 30 points. CBU also produced the individual champion for the second year in a row and finished the night with 19 points. Azusa Pacific followed with 48 points, while Riverside Community College (84) and Concordia (89) rounded out second, third and fourth, respectively.

"It was nice to get the victory, but we have high goals at the end of the season and will have to get better in the later stages of the race to achieve them," said Coach Ben Gall of his team's performance. "There were some rusty performances that we need to get better at."

After the first long stretch of the course, it wasn't sure which Lancer would come away with the individual crown as 10 CBU runners were all running together at the front of the pack.

"It's nice to see that many [CBU] jerseys in front of some really good runners," Gall said.

The heavy doses of Lancer gold and navy continued all the way through the finish line, led by Valentin Robert. He won the event in his Lancer debut last year and ran another solid race to open the season, clocking in at 18 minutes, 47.9 seconds.

Through the race, Robert stayed back and kept pace with the leaders, patiently waiting until the right moment to open his stride and push forward. He found his queue when the opponents were becoming tired and gassed, allowing the Frenchman to open a gaping lead and finish comfortably in first.

"I wanted to stay in the back for most of the race," Robert said. "After two miles, I started to speed up and for the final mile it was just me and a runner for APU. After a while I decided to speed up and I ended up by myself."

"He is definitely one of our top guys," Gall added. "We were thinking about holding him out because he was struggling with minor injuries."

While APU got the runner up, CBU runners filled in third, fourth, fifth and sixth with a mixture of new and old faces. William Ernst finished third in his collegiate debut with a time of 19:00.58, followed by Anthony Lozano (19:02.31), who had Jayden Emerson on his tail (19:03.09). Dennis Messmer rounded out the top six with a time of 19:06.08. Tyre Hines also put in an excellent finish, taking eighth (19:12.63).

"Our team is very good," said Robert. "It is important for us to run together like we did today."

CBU will take the next week to train hard as it stays local for its next meet at University of California Riverside on Saturday Sept. 12th.

RESULTS