In his 20 years of coaching the women’s Cross Country team, coach Dean Lofgren is experiencing something for the first time: coaching a true rebuilding team.

For the first two races, the women have not been scored as a team and were only competing as individuals. On Saturday at the Orange Coast Classic in Costa Mesa, only sophomore Courtney Stephens, who finished thirteenth, and Naomi AltaMarino (thirty-ninth place) competed.

The reason for that is Lofgren is trying to develop his other runners.

“We don’t have to have a full team until the conference championship so we’re just running individuals,” Lofgren said.

The reason why the women are not ready is that Lofgren is still trying to develop all of the upcoming freshmen runners.

“After losing Megan Adams, Kiersten Adams and Gaby Ruby, 3 of my top runners, obviously this is a rebuilding year, because we have so many new runners that we still have to develop,” Lofgren said.

In his time as coach, Lofgren has never experienced having this many new runners.

Lofgren plans to train the freshmen runners a little bit more until he feels that they are ready to compete as a team.

“Aside from (Stephens) and (AltaMarino), we don’t really have anyone who I feel is ready to compete just yet,” Lofgren said.

But with practice and a lot of hard work, things may change as soon as this Saturday.

“We’ll see how this week’s practices go, and we’ll go from there,” Lofgren said.

Although the team is rebuilding, Lofgren sees a lot of potential in this group of runners.

“Even though we only have (Stephens) and (AltaMarino) running right now, the girls are working very hard, and if they keep that up, we have a chance to compete as a group,” Lofgren said.

With Stephens’ and Altamarino’s leadership, Lofgren remains optimistic. “(Stephens) is working hard and so is (AltaMarino). They are setting good examples on what it’s like to compete,” Lofgren said.

With Stephens’ thirteenth-place finish and time of 20:18, she earned fourth best all-time for the OC classic. AltaMarino’s 37th place finish and time of 21:27 puts her ninth all-time for the OC classic.

Things are looking bright for the women’s team as they continue to train hard and progress.

Lofgren is hoping for luck to be at the team’s side as the season goes on for the women.

“All we can do right now is train hard, hope for the best and keep our fingers crossed,” Lofgren said.