SAN FRANCISCO - The UC San Diego women's cross country team took seventh place, while the men's squad finished ninth at the 2009 NCAA Division II West Regional Championships, held at Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park. Despite neither team qualifying for the NCAA National Championships, UCSD head coach Nate Garcia and the squads took positives out of Saturday's competition.

"We were disappointed with the overall results but I was pleased with our efforts on both sides," Garcia said. "I saw a lot of heart out there."

Sophomore All-American Bre Schofield, who finished 22nd at the 2008 D-II National Championships, narrowly missed qualifying as an individual this season. Cal State L.A.'s Vivien Wadeck and Megan Rolland of Humboldt State advanced as the top two finishers on non-qualifying teams with respective times of 21:34.2 and 21:41.5. Schofield (21:52.8) placed 18th overall, less than 12 seconds behind the cutoff to move onto the National Championships.

Chico State showed its toughness once again this year, taking first place in the men's 10k race and second in the women's 6k. Western Washington and Alaska Anchorage will be joining the Wildcats at the championships on the men's side. The four women's squads that will make the Evansville trip along with Chico State include Western Washington, Alaska Anchorage and Seattle Pacific. All seven of the squads advancing to the National Championships entered the week ranked in the USTFCCAA Top 25.

Coming off a second-place finish at the California Collegiate Athletic Association Championships, the Triton women finished seventh out of the 25 squads competing in the Regional Championships Saturday. Schofield, a Carlsbad, Calif. native, led the way once again with her 21:52.8 performance, an 18th-place finish. Next to cross the line for UCSD was fellow sophomore Elena Inouye, with a 22:52.3 mark. Inouye, after placing 51st in last season's regionals, took 37th on Saturday. Not far behind Inouye were Tritons Marie Schaper (23:01.5), Aaryn Kobayashi (23:19.5) and Brianna Alban (23:36.5) to round out UCSD's scoring.

On the men's side for the Tritons, sophomore Jeremy Riley led the way with a time of 32:58.1, good enough for 35th place. Riley placed 51st in 2008. The rest of the UCSD scorers fell close behind Riley as the Tritons' top five finished within the top 70 spots. Mike Wright finished 43rd with a time of 33:26.7 while Alex Corliss (33:52.5), John Svet (34:21.2) and Eric Baum (34:26.3), making their first career appearances in the NCAA West Regional Championships, rounded out the UCSD scoring.

"The men did a really good job of pack running today," Garcia said. "We set out to close the gap on Cal State Stanislaus and we did a better job of accomplishing that than I saw at CCAAs."

The top finisher in the men's race was Alaska Anchorage's Marko Cheseto, with a time of 30:42.5, while Jessica Pixler of Seattle Pacific won on the women's side as she crossed the line at 20:08.9.