The Arizona men’s and women’s cross country teams swept the 2014 Dave Murray Invitational on Friday in their only home meet of the season.

Competing against a number of intrastate schools, including ASU and NAU, the Wildcats won both the men’s 4.25 mile-race and the women’s three-mile race in an impressive fashion.

Sophomore Collins Kibet won the men’s race with a time of 21:15.00, while senior Kristina Aubert cruised to take first place in the women’s race with a 16:40.00 time.

“I think we did really well,” UA head coach James Li said. “We want to have a good training on our home course, and I just want everyone to go there and work together as a team.”

However, the results don’t carry much weight as the competitive stretch of the season begins next week, and most schools were not running at full strength.

Even with an advantage in the number of competitors, Arizona quickly separated itself from the pack in both the men’s and women’s races.

The men took three out of the four top spots, with senior Sam Macaluso coming in second and senior Kenji Bierig in fourth. Sophomores Matthew Beer and Patrick Leary contributed to Arizona’s first place score with eighth and 10th-place finishes.

“Our goal as a team was definitely to win, but more than anything, to get ready for the bigger meets,” Macaluso said. “Even though it’s a smaller meet, we’re preparing for Virginia in a week.”

On the women’s side, Arizona dominated the race from the start and took the first six spots. Junior Molly Callahan finished runner-up behind Aubert, followed by seniors Stephanie Bulder and Kate Penney.

“Our team goal was to run as a pack, and I think that executed really well,” Bulder said. “That’s the kind of effort and togetherness we really want to carry throughout the rest of the year.”

Senior Amanda Russell and freshman Claire Green finished in fifth and sixth place to round out the sweep.

“We’re trying to qualify and go into postseason as a team,” Bulder said. “Individually, obviously the better we do, the better the team does, but we want to be able to do that together.”

The Wildcats now shift their attention to the Virginia/Paranoma Farms Invitational held Friday.

“We’ll probably take a couple rest days,” Macaluso said. “Rest our bodies, go to the training room a lot and get re-geared and ready to go again.”
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Follow Ezra Amacher on Twitter @EzraAmacher