They lost the meet but gained respect as the women?s cross country team placed sixth and the men placed seventh overall at Saturday?s Big Sky Conference team Invitational Saturday in Northridge.

The men?s seventh-place finish matched its preseason rank while the women, who were picked to finish dead last in the conference, improved three places to finish sixth out of nine teams.

“I was really pleased with the women?s performance. They beat some pretty good schools and proved that they were better than their last-place preseason rank,” head coach Joe Neff said. “That?s really a great tribute to their improvement.”

Improvement would describe not only the women as a whole, but also junior Melissa Madeson, who bettered her 53rd-place finish at last year?s conference finals with a fifth-place time of 17 minutes, 46.47 seconds.

Madeson led teammates Tina Limon (28), Annett Corey (39), Ann Koscki (45), and Sara Swan (50) to within 22 points of fifth-place Idaho State. Neff said the Hornets might have made up those points if they had the services of sophomore Molly Peterson.

Peterson, who had been a top-ten finisher for the Hornets, has been unable to compete since sustaining a stress fracture early in the season.

Neff said that he was proud of the strides the women made this year.

“I see big progress because we improved from last place last year to sixth place this year,” Neff said.

As for Madeson, the season may not be quite finished.

“Melissa stands a very good chance to qualify for the NCAA?s,” Neff said.

The qualifying meet for the NCAA championship will be the Nov. 11 District championship in Fresno.

Senior Craig Farley, who came in 27th with a time of 25:47.6, and junior Jake Mills, who finished in 31st place with a time of 25:53.93, led the Sac State men. They were followed by Erik Mencarini (42), Dustin Diaz (43), and Dustin Beauchamp (47).

Although the men finished right where they were expected to, there were times this season when it seemed like they were poised to surprise some people and make some noise at the conference finals. But despite the strong efforts of Farley and Mills, the team was not able to ride the momentum it had built earlier in the season.

“We didn?t get the finish out of Erik that we did last season, and that hurt us,” Neff said. “But Craig Farley and Dustin Diaz ran really well.”

Mencarini?s performance inexplicably fell off toward the end of the season and the cause is unknown even to the coach.

“Sometime around the Stanford meet he looked like he was either tired or sick. He bounced back, but he wasn?t able to finish the season like he was last year,” Neff said.

Nevertheless, Neff is encouraged by the progress his athletes made this season and things are looking bright for next year with many of his top runners coming back.

“I am very pleased with both teams. They prepared themselves as well as they could,” Neff said. “I see big progress with the way we improved over last year.”