Cal State San Bernardino will be looking to improve significantly on last year's eighth-place finish when the women's cross country team takes on its conference rivals Saturday at the 2009 California Collegiate Athletic Association cross country championships.
    The women's race, set for 9 a.m. on the Beau Pre golf course in McKinleyville, will feature the nation's No. 1 NCAA Division II team -- Chico State -- along with 23rd ranked UC San Diego and 25th ranked Cal State L.A. Cal Poly Pomona -- ranked No. 7 in the West Region -- is also in the field.
    The Coyotes are coming off a sixth-place finish in the UC San Diego Tritons Invitational that saw nearly every CSUSB runner improve their personal best at 6,000 meters, the distance for Saturday's championship.
    Head Coach Tom Burleson feels that a fifth-place finish is not outside the realm of possibility, given the relative strengths of teams not already regionally- or nationally-ranked.
    It will be a young Coyotes team dominated thus far during the season by freshmen and sophomore runners, led by first-year runner Samantha Borman of Redlands, who  posted a 23:22 time for 6K at the UCSD meet.
    Also expected to run up front for the Coyotes are freshmen Rebekah Frazier, Deserae Perez  and Courtney Ciraulo, along with sophomore Niki Chesnut and seniors Anjuli Nieto and Angelica Lopez.  All but Perez broke 25 minutes at the UCSD meet.\
    "We're really young and we're in a really tough conference," Burleson told The Sun newspaper this week. "The girls are running great times. I think a top-five finish would be great. It's a realistic goal."
    Chico State, ranked No. 1 in the nation and West Region, is the defending champion and has won this event five times in the last seven years. UCSD is ranked No. 5 in the West Region while Cal State L.A. is No. 6 and Cal Poly Pomona is No. 7.
    The top seven runners from each team impact the race but only the top five score points for the team. The top 15 finishers are awarded all-CCAA honors.
    Beau Pre golf course offers a gradual uphill course with one steep uphill climb in the women's event. Nearly all of the surface is grass. The course has been used for NCAA regional and national championships in the past. Humboldt State is the host school for the event.