Sept. 30, 2008

Eugene, OR - Cal State Fullerton's women's cross country team will head north and take a step up in class this weekend when it competes in the third annual Bill Delliner Invitational hosted by the University of Oregon.

"This is a great opportunity for our women's program to run against some of the best teams in the country," said Head Coach John Elders. "This will be the first race that we have run all of our top women. Carolyn Ellis and Grace Gonzales have looked great in workouts and I believe they're ready to run with the top individuals in this meet.

"The supporting cast of Meredith Robie, Yomaira Hernandez, Erin Griffith, Andrea Aguilar, Amanda Robles and Erika Estrada has been improving every week. The key to our success will be getting a pack time close to a minute. If we do that we'll be very competitive."

The women's race begins at 10:30 a.m. at the Springfield Country Club while the men's race will go off at 11:15 a.m. Fullerton's men's team is idle this week. The secondary Titan women will compete at the Pepperdine Invitational Saturday at 10:55 a.m.

The Dellinger Invitational has become one of the nation's premier cross country events. With ranked teams and schools from every region of the country slated to run, the 2008 edition carries on that tradition.

The men's race will feature the defending national champion Oregon Ducks, along with four other squads ranked among the nation's top 25. Competition should be entertaining among No. 1 Oregon, No. 5 Alabama, No. 7 Portland, No. 17 Texas-El Paso and No. 23 Cal Poly, in addition to solid teams from Colorado State, Penn State, UCLA (also receiving votes) and Weber State.

The women's race has the top-ranked Ducks joined by No. 11 Arkansas, No. 17 Colorado State and No. 23 Brigham Young, in addition to Cal State Fullerton, Penn State (also receiving votes), Portland (also receiving votes), Texas-El Paso and Wake Forest.

Oregon press release