LA JOLLA, Calif. - The UC San Diego cross country teams fared well on their home course on Saturday, posting a pair of top four finishes at the annual Triton Classic. The Tritons finished second out of eight teams in the 10k men's race, while the women took fourth out of 13 squads in their 6k event.

"We're happy with the results today," head coach Nate Garcia said. "The plan on our course is always to pace ourselves early and then make a push in the second half and both squads did that. We had a good showing against the teams in our conference so we have a good idea of where we're at heading into the CCAA championships in two weeks."

Competing for the first time since September 12, sophomore Bre Schofield had a strong performance for UCSD, finishing fourth overall with a time of 22:20.8. The Carlsbad, Calif. native recorded her third consecutive top five finish after an illness kept her out of the University of Southern Indiana Pre-National Invitational two weeks ago.

Elena Inouye was the next Triton to finish, placing 13th overall in this event for the second year in a row with a final time of 22:58.1. Running as a pack, Brianna Alban, Aaryn Kobayashi, and Marie Schaper capped the scoring for UCSD, finishing 22nd, 23rd, and 24th with their respective times of 23:33.5, 23:33.6, and 23:36.2.

Central Arizona won the women's race, placing four runners in the top 10. After finishing second at the Triton Classic in 2008, Rose Tanui broke the tape for CAC, finishing with a time of 21:38.0 to easily outdistance the rest of the field. The University of Victoria's Deirdre Moran finished second at 22:11.8, four seconds ahead of Central Arizona's Violah Lagat, who took third.

Central Arizona scored a total of 58 points to finish 10 in front of second place UC Irvine, while the University of Victoria finished third with 78 points in what proved to be a very close race.

Sophomore Jeremy Riley led five Tritons in the top 20 on the men's side, finishing 10th overall with a time of 33:37.3. He finished one spot in front of teammate Mike Wright, who crossed the finish line with a time of 33:42.2. John Svet had one of his better performances as a Triton, finishing 14th overall at 34:08.3, while Alex Corliss and Andre LaMothe finished in 17th and 20th place to round out the scoring for UCSD. Corliss clocked in at 34:18.7 and LaMothe completed the course in 34:37.9.

Central Arizona's Henry Lelei was the top individual finisher, breaking the tape with an impressive time of 31:11.4. His time was over 48 seconds fastest than Cal Poly Pomona's Matt Prentice, who placed second at 31:59.6. Matt Pieterson of the University of Victoria finished third at 32:11.7, while Pomona's Jersain Torres clocked in at 32:18.1 to take fourth.

Cal Poly Pomona had four runners finish in the top 10 and scored 29 points to win the team title on the men's side. UCSD tallied 64 points to hold off Victoria by four, while Central Arizona claimed fourth place with 88.

The Tritons will now have a week off of competition to prepare for the 2009 CCAA Championships, which will be held October 24 at Humboldt State in Arcata.