In their second meet of the season the Cal State Northridge men’s and women’s cross country team competed in the UC Riverside Invitational Saturday morning. The CSUN women finished 12th while the Matador men finished a disappointing 25th out of 30.

Once again the Matador women were lead by junior Lilyana Morejon, who placed fifth in the 5K race, giving her two top five finishes in her first two meets, with a time of 17:07.1. Morejon ran 19 second faster than last week’s race in Irvine.

Junior transfer Zitalic Ley also had a faster time than last week 5K race, finishing with a time of 18:12.0 and placing 64th.

Morejon, Ley and the rest of the Northridge women saw tougher competition in Riverside, which is why they didn’t place as high as the prior week. Overall CSUN ran an average time of 18:22.42, a 20-second improvement from the first meet.

Sandra Velarde, Nanci Velarde and Mallory Day all finished in the top 100.

The Matador men also improved their time, posting an average time of 26:08.10, two minutes and fifteen seconds faster then last week’s meet.

For the second consecutive week Juan Olea was the highest Northridge finisher, placing 105th in a time of 26:17.3. Masis Hagobian was second for the Matadors clocking in at 27:48.3 and placing 213th.

Even though the CSUN men improved time wise they need to start placing higher in meets, if they want to be respected in the Big West Conference.

Saturday the Matadors head up north to race in the Stanford Invitational.