Facing a bye week and the Oct. 28 Big Sky Conference championship, the Sac State cross country team took full advantage of its final meet of the season and dominated the Mills College Invitational in Oakland Saturday.

The Hornets swept both the men?s and women?s races to capture first place in both divisions. Sac State finished ahead of host Mills College, Holy Names, Menlo College, and CSU Monterey Bay.

“This was a good tune-up for conference, definitely,” said coach Joe Neff as he will now focus on preparing his team for the conference finals coming up in a couple of weeks. Sac State achieved the commanding victory with a complete team effort. The men placed first through seventh and nine out of the top 10 while the women placed first through sixth and 10 out of the top 11.

Sac State?s Craig Farley won the eight kilometer event with a time of 27:52. He was followed closely by Jake Mills who finished second at 28:03. The Hornets finished the next five runners as Erik Mencarini, Dustin Diaz, and Dustin Beauchamp each finished under 29 minutes. Brad Wilson finished at 29:06 with Stephen Stumpf right behind at 29:12.

Howard Story took ninth place with a time of 30:28, Alex Barrios was tenth at 30:38 and Adam Wilson came in thirteenth with a time of 30:52.

The Sac State women duplicated the effort put forth by the men as they collected an equally impressive win.

Tina Limon bested the field of thirty-three athletes with a time of 18:44 and was followed by a parade of hornet runners.

Annette Corey finished second at 19:22, Ann Koscki third at 19:32, and Sara Swan was fourth at 19:42. Next across the line was Melicia Wong with a fifth-place time of 20:05, Chrissy Clark finished sixth at 20:13, Erin Offield was eighth at 20:58, and Michelle Luedke finished ninth at 21:58.

Wrapping up the competition for Sac State was Nikkita Moorer and Heather Clark who finished tenth and eleventh respectively with times of 22:13 for Moorer and 22:30 for Clark.

“The men have really closed the gap between the first and fifth place runners, and so have the women,” Neff said, summing up his team?s success.

One Hornet who did not enjoy the event was Melissa Madeson. Neff sent his junior standout to San Diego to compete in the UC San Diego Triton Invitational where she competed as an unattached runner.

The idea was to allow Madeson to compete in an event that may hold more of a challenge for her than the meet at Mills College offered. But Madeson had little trouble with the field in San Diego, finishing the five-kilometer race with a time of 18:03, good enough for first place.

“She literally ran away from the rest of the field,” Neff said, referring to Madeson?s first overall win of the season.

Now the Hornets have a week off to rest up and get healthy for the conference finals. Neff said he believes that his athletes will be ready to meet the challenge.

“We have a bye this week and next week we will get after it at conference,” he said. “We have had a few cases of the flu going around but I don?t think that?s going to be a problem.”