Natalie Bitetti repeats as women’s 6-kilometer winner for Athenas, who sweep top three spots and have five scorers in top 15; Colorado College’s James Settles takes men’s 8-kilometer title, with Sagehens placing five athletes in top 20 

By Pete Marshall for DyeStat

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference cross country runners probably didn’t need home cooking. But it certainly didn’t hurt, either.

Running on the same course where they won their conference championships two weeks ago, the Pomona-Pitzer men and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women were victorious Saturday at the NCAA Division 3 West Regional on a warm and dusty Riverside City Cross Country Course.

The CMS women won their sixth regional title in a row and 16th overall.

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Not only did Natalie Bitetti repeat as regional champion, covering the 6-kilometer layout in 21:32.8, but the Athenas had the top three finishers. Bitetti was followed by her teammates Elle Marsyla (21:53.5) and Riley Capuano (21:56.4), as CMS finished with 32 points.

CMS gets the only automatic berth to compete Nov. 18 at the NCAA Division 3 Championships in Pennsylvania, but George Fox (74), Colorado College (108) and UC Santa Cruz (151) all have good chances to receive at-large berths based on their national rankings entering the postseason.

As for Bitetti, she took the lead at the start and never relinquished it.

“I was trying to lean in and establish a pace that felt comfortable,” she said. “And just relax into it and see how far that took me. And as the pain started to creep in, just trust it and accept it. I do all my races by feel.”

Bitetti was only a second off from her SCIAC-winning result on the same layout Oct. 28, but Marsyla and Capuano – who also finished 2-3 at conference finals – improved by more than six and 14 seconds, respectively.

Was Marsyla surprised?

“Honestly, yes,” she said. “I heard about the really fast girls from Lewis and Clark and George Fox and they both took out the race a little bit fast. I was like, ‘I’m OK with fourth.’ But then I noticed I was gaining on them as the race went on and at that point I thought, ‘I’m going to go for it.’”

Like the CMS women, the Pomona-Pitzer men won their sixth straight regional title and it was the men’s ninth regional crown overall.

But there was a bit of a surprise at the top.

The Sagehens’ Lucas Florsheim did not successfully defend his regional title – taking second in 24:37.4 – as Colorado College senior James Settles won the individual crown in 24:23.0 on the 8-kilometer course. Settles took over the lead for good by the 6.3-kilometer mark.

“I was working with some Pomona guys. I was working with Lucas Florsheim, who is really a fantastic runner,” Settles said. “So we worked together through about three miles, then we started to put some steam on. I made a really big move about 3.5 miles, something like that, That’s how I envisioned it going and that’s how I executed.”

Although it had been a while since he ran it, Settles was familiar with the course, which is on the site of a former golf course. He attended Claremont High in Southern California and ran a 3-mile course at the same site for the CIF-Southern Section Championships.

Florsheim’s time was actually faster than his victorious SCIAC effort of 24:44.3, but he had to settle for runner-up honors.

“I wanted to win but James is really, really good,” Florsheim said. “We’ve been friends for the last couple of years. I knew it was going to be a battle. I gave him what I could, but he won the day. I’m definitely excited to race again next week.”

The Sagehens finished with 45 points to earn the automatic berth for the NCAA Division 3 Championships, while SCIAC rival CMS (93), George Fox (104) and Colorado College (121) all have good opportunities to earn at-large team berths.

In addition to the automatic team qualifiers for the NCAA Division 3 Championships, the top seven individuals on non-qualifying teams for both the men and women also advanced.

One of those individual qualifiers was Pacific Lutheran senior Ryan Stracke, who finished third in 24:41.2.

“I just wanted to make sure to get a good spot from the start and I ended up in the front (group),” Stracke said. “I just tried to go with a pace that I felt was my race pace. I just did my best to stick with them (front group).”

Riley Buese, a junior at Lewis and Clark, secured sixth in the women’s race in 22:11.3 and leads the region’s individual qualifiers, with the top five competitors all representing teams expected to be selected Sunday.