After running against several Universities of California and California State Schools in last week’s meet, the cross-country team faced a new kind of competition at the Southern California Preview in Costa Mesa last Saturday.

“The competition is extremely good. The team that won is the favored team and the defending state champions,” Sean Sheil, assistant coach, said.

Among the runners for the men’s 4-mile course was American River College, defending state champions, and the top two long distance runners in the country.

“The runners are testing themselves to see what they can do. We’re learning, they’re learning as they go and when they run with those guys, that’s what they have to do,” Sheil said.

Tyler Caracoza, 18, engineering major, admitted that the team did not do as well as it had hoped but is using this race to better prepare itself for the future.

Caracoza placed 46th with a time of 22:16.54.

“I think we did decent to not so great because our guys were tired,” Caracoza said.

“I could have moved up in certain places and taken the middle parts of the race with more tenacity, but, overall, I think I did pretty well,” Caracoza added.

As a team the Warriors did not reach their high expectations, although placing sixth overall and running against some of the top athletes in the country.

“We got a few rookie mistakes from the guys,” Dean Lofgren, coach, said, “If you’re going to take the lead from these guys you better be ready because the level that we compete against here is very good.”

Reo Miranda, 17, undecided major, said he felt the heat of the sun as well as the competition when he ran with the lead pack from American River College in the second mile and placed 34th with a time of 21:57.10.

“I was a little disappointed because I got caught in the front group and I knew that would be trouble for me because I would have to keep that pace,” Miranda said.

“I eventually fell back on the third mile and just tried to hold on from there on out,” Miranda said.

The women’s team demonstrated its ability to power through the competition by placing 11th in the women’s 5,000 meter course.

Brittany Householder, 19, psychology major, ran after being out for three weeks due to a knee injury and placed 132nd with a time of 23:31:48.

“This week was my first week back and my knee was hurting me Monday and Tuesday so Thursday was my only running day this week,” Householder said.

Being the only returning runner on the women’s team, Lofgren and Sheil project Householder to be one of the leading runners for the future meets and encourage her to push through her injury.

“Not running for a long time takes out all the hard work you put in,” Householder said.

“For not having all of that my time was pretty good,” she added.

Although not meeting their expectations for this meet, the cross-country team has high hopes for Saturday’s meet at the Golden West Invitational at Central Park in Huntington Beach.

“It’s early in the season and we are here to get a feel for the competition,” Lofgren said. “It’s a learning experience.”