After coming off a top 10 finish in their season opener, the women’s cross country team was ready to show what it has in store for this season; that was exactly what it did, by taking third in the L.A. Trade Tech Invitational.

The Warriors are to compete at Central Park in Huntington Beach for the Golden West Invitational Saturday morning, which coach Dean Lofgren anticipates to be challenging.

“The course is hilly dirt trails and it is one of the fastest courses we will run this season,” he said.

The Warriors will be facing some tough competition this Saturday at Central Park, including such colleges as American River and conference rivals L.A. Trade Tech and Cerritos.

“These schools are some of the best in the state,” Lofgren said.

The Warriors went to L.A. Pierce College for the L.A. Trade Tech Invitational last Saturday. The Warriors finished third place overall, behind second-place Oxnard College and L.A. Trade Tech College.

“We are pleased to see how well they have improved since their first meet,” Lofgren said. “If all of our women had gone out as fast as the rest, we could placed higher.”

The Warriors were led by their top runner, freshman Maria Colin. She led the Warriors by finishing third overall in the 5,000-meter with a time of 21:15.

“We expect Colin to be a top runner; she has shown so much promise in her training this summer and we knew it would transfer to her races,” Lofgren said. “We told her to get out front and try to win the race. She took it out fast and led past the first mile, but then succumbed to two very good runners.”

Finishing behind Colin were Sandra Lopez, who finished 16th place overall with a time of 22:50, and Yuriko Miyata, who finished 17th overall with a time of 23:05

“We are coming together as a team. We hope that next week we can step it up and finish second overall,” Lopez said. ” It is also nice to see that our hardwork at practice is paying off.”