SAN MARCOS, Calif. –  The Cal State San Marcos men's and women's cross country teams will host the 16th Annual Cougar Challenge on Saturday morning on the CSUSM campus. 

LAST TIME OUT

• The women's squad took third place in the UC Riverside Open race.
• Carly Schuerger took CSUSM's top spot with a PR time of 18:06.2 for seventh place. 
• The men's team split its squad, finishing 16th in the Open race and ninth in the Invite race.
• Sankalp Shastri was CSUSM's top runner in the Invite with a 70th-place finish while Ziggy Nacco claimed 54th place in the open race. 

 

RACE 3 | COUGAR CHALLENGE
Date	Saturday, Sept. 23, 2022
Race Start Times	Women's 8K - 8:30 a.m.  Men's 6K - 9:15 a.m.
Location (Course)	San Marcos, Calif.
Course Map	CSUSM Championship Course (PDF)
Live Scoring	Finished Results

COUGAR CHALLENGE CLIPS

• This marks the third consecutive year the Cougar Challenge will be run on the CSUSM Championship Course. In 2021, CSUSM hosted the CCAA Championships on the course as well. 
• Both teams have won eight of the 15 Cougar Challenges with the first three men's races and the first two women's races not recording a team score. 
• The men's and women's teams both finished fifth in the 2022 Cougar Challenge. 
• Ruben Piña was the men's top runner with a time of 24:45.7 for 13th place. 
• For the second consecutive year, Renee Laurenzana was the women's top runner after claiming 17th place with a time of 22:01.2. 
• The 2023 Cougar Challenge field will consist of 18 women's and 17 men's teams - Cal Poly Pomona (M/F), Chico State (M/F), Cal State East Bay (M/F), San Diego Mesa (M/F), Mesa CC (AZ) (M/F), Cal State Monterey Bay (M/F), Cal State San Bernardino (F), Cal State LA (M/F), UC San Diego (M/F), Hawai'i Pacific (M/F), Western New Mexico (M/F), Art U (M/F), Occidental (M/F), Concordia University Irvine (M/F), Salt Lake CC (M/F), Whittier (M), Chapman (M/F), Point Loma (F), Cal State San Marcos (M/F)

MEET THE COUGARS

• The women's team returns 13 runners while the men's team has eight returners from the 2021 squad. 
• Twenty student-athletes will be wearing Cougar Blue this season (14 women, six men). 
• In their final races of 2021, both teams finished sixth at the NCAA Division II West Regional hosted by Western Oregon. 
• Shea Vavra was CSUSM's lone representative at the 2021 NCAA Division II National Championships in Saint Leo, Florida, where he finished 116th out of 262 runners. 
• The Cougars were picked third in both the CCAA Men's & Women's Cross Country Preseason Coaches Poll.
• In the preseason edition of the 2022 NCAA Division II National Rankings, as released by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches' Association (USTFCCCA), the women were ranked 27th while the men were receiving votes (both are sixth in the West Region). 

THE OLSON FILE

• Head coach Torrey Olson begins his fifth season at the helm of the men's and women's cross country programs after taking over in the summer of 2018.
• Olson came to CSUSM after spending three seasons as the Director of Track & Field and Cross Country at the Academy of Art University where his teams earned 50-plus All-American honors.
• Olson served as the head cross country coach the previous three years at Academy of Art.
• In addition to the Academy of Art, Olson has also worked with the University of San Francisco and Pomona-Pitzer College.
• A graduate of Pomona College in 2009, Olson also holds an MFA from St. Mary's College (2012).