With the race beginning at 9 a.m., the West Valley runners arrived in Folsom behind schedule at 8:15 a.m. The race was run on a newly designed course just behind Folsom High School and featured both community college athletes as well as open and post-collegiate runners.

"This is a very challenging course, both for its hills and the rocky trails," said West Valley coach Lisa Renteria. And after seeing fear in the eyes of her runners, Renteria gave these words of wisdom to her squad: "Don't worry about time, everyone is running the same race with the same feelings about it. Just compete with people out there, and watch your step!"

Despite the difficult course, the women of West Valley were able to come away with third place overall.

Sophomore Shelby Burrus (20:54) led the Viking women with a seventh-place finish. Freshman Ashley Harris (21:02) followed closely behind, finishing ninth.

Then came the newest Viking of the group, Heather Laptalo (21:14), who shocked some people by trailing Harris by only five seconds at the first mile marker. Laptalo finished 12th.

Freshman Amanda Schwabe (23:00) was 30th with freshman Carolyn Ewers (24:48) 45th.

The West Valley men ran the same race and finished in fourth place. Sophomore Lenin Zapata (22:47) flew through the challenging race to take third place.

Less than full minute later came sophomore Taff Dirks (23:24) in 11th place and shortly thereafter freshman Kendon Nebeker (23:27) finished 13th.

Freshmen Michael Sosa (24:15) and Kyle Kurani (24:21) were fast enough for 20th and 31st to complete the point scoring for the Vikings.

"With each week, our men's team is narrowing the margin between us and the defending conference champs, Hartnell," said Renteria.

The week prior to the Beaver Invitational marked the first time this season that West Valley was able to field two complete teams. Until that point, the Viking women's squad had only four runners, which is not enough to complete the scoring. But the Vikes were able to acquire another runner in time for the Lou Vasquez Invitational hosted by the City College of San Francisco and run at the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park.

This time it was the men who came away with a better outcome with a fourth-place finish in the 4-mile race.

Once again, Zapata (20:44) led his team with a second-place finish overall. Following Zapata was Dirks (21:13) in 12th, Nebeker (21:34) in 27th, Sosa (21:50) in 43rd and Kurani (22:13) in 51st.

The West Valley women were not on top of their game in this 5K race and were only fast enough to finish 11th overall with a total time of 112:10.

Burrus (19:36) led the West Valley women with an 18th-place overall finish with Harris (21:01) coming in behind her in 30th. Schwabe (21:27) was 42nd with Ewers (23:47) 80th and freshman Christine Nguyen (25:40) 94th.