With the first meet of 2011 in the books, the CSU Bakersfield Cross Country team has more experience under its belt and is looking forward to the Asics/UC Irvine Invitational on Saturday in Irvine, Calif.

New Head Coach Ashley Benson made her debut with the Roadrunners as they opened their season at the Malibu Oceanside Invitational hosted by Pepperdine on Sept. 1. CSUB fell to Pepperdine 15-44.

Having been able to see her runners perform in the season opener helped Benson get a better gauge on the team in preparation for the Asics/UC Irvine Invitational.

"This week in practice we have been focusing on running more as a team in order to get our score lower," Benson said. "We have also been doing a lot of hill work in order to have a strategy for beating competitors during the toughest aspects of the race."

Against Pepperdine, junior Roadrunner Cecilia Lopez (Bakersfield, Calif., North HS) posted the fastest CSUB time by clocking a 20:13.13 to place sixth overall.

Saturday's meet will be the first of the season for UC Irvine. It is slated to begin at 8:30 a.m.

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