Sacramento State cross country heads to the land of a bitter rival as the team looks to continue a good start to the season at the UC Davis Invitational.

The first meet of the season at the University of San Francisco Invitational shined a positive light on the team as the men were able to take fifth place in the team category and the women ran their way to a seventh place team finish.

Sophomore Dominic Vogl played a key role as he was the first Sac State runner to cross the finish line in 22nd place with a time of 26:22.8 in an 8k race filled with 74 runners.

Senior Michele Garcia was the top female runner for Sac State finishing the 5k race in 19:39.6, good enough for 43rd place in a field of 120 runners.

The team was pleasantly surprised by the performance of their freshmen that ran in their first NCAA-level race. Colin Szehner, Daniel Carlson, Daniel Grech, Erin Wachter and Kristina Holtz were able to put aside some nerves and run quality races for the Hornets.

“They said they were nervous, but they performed well,” assistant coach Juan Vazquez said. “The freshmen did very, very good.”The team heads to the Davis invite hoping for the same type of positive result and looking to run miles around their rivals.

“They’re our rival, so we’ll have some extra energy,” sophomore Vince D’Ononfrio said.

Senior Virginia Grillo said the team did not run at the invitational last year but she remembers running at the Davis course as a sophomore and that it was a flat, hot course that provides no shade.

“Hopefully we can compete with Davis and take them,” Grillo said.

Senior Caitlyn Smith said the cross country team in past years has had a lazy feeling to it but feels this year is different with a better atmosphere and hopes to beat Davis in her final cross country season.

“We’re getting ready, we’re going to attack them,” Smith said.

Szehner said that the team is pretty good and vows that the team will improve upon bad seasons in the past.

“Our team is going to do better than last year,” Szehner said.

The team has come out of the gates strong and now continues their journey of improvement across the causeway this Saturday.

Matt Vevoda can be reached at [email protected]