The Sacramento State cross country team represented well at their first home meet of the season, as the men and women’s team finished fifth and fourth, respectively, at the Capital Cross Challenge at the Haggin Oaks Golf Complex in Sacramento, California on Saturday.

Senior Chloe Berlioux finished with a time of 16:36 claiming the individual 5K title. Along with Berlioux, senior Amanda Garcia finished in the top 10 out of a total of 89 runners. Garcia placed sixth with a time of 17:03.

“I feel good about winning the race,” Berlioux said. “It’s nice to be at home and have all the support all around you the whole way through.”

On the men’s side, it was senior Jacob Huston pacing the team finishing in the top ten out of 68 runners in the 8K race. Huston finished seventh with a time of 25:05.

“I have a lot more confidence than I did a week ago,” Huston said when asked how he felt about finishing in the top ten of the 8K race.

Behind Huston, it was sophomore Samuel Scheuer finishing 17th with a time of 25:21.

Coach Laura Harmon was pleased with the team’s overall effort and performance.

“I think they competed really well,” Harmon said. “This was the race where I told a few of our runners to take a risk. Some of them it paid off and some of them it bit them in the butt, but you have to test your limits and I think that they did a really good job of that.”

Harmon has also been trying to help the team improve their mental toughness over the season and she said that they are improving in that area of running.

“I definitely saw some big improvements with a few of the runners who I really wanted to try to run with some other people and they did really well, ” Harmon said. “Hopefully they can continue to take that into the future of the next three of four races”

Huston said these next couple of weeks will be very important and that they will work hard in preparing for their upcoming meets.

“We have a bye next week and then we have the Santa Clara meet the week after that and that will be a big tune up before the Big Sky Championship,” Huston said.

After next week’s bye, the Hornets will compete in the Santa Clara Bronco Invite on Saturday Oct. 17.