SAN MARCOS, Calif. –  The Cal State San Marcos men's and women's cross country teams will host the 17th 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. 

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.
• Renton McGregor was the men's top runner with a time of 25:06.7 for 15th place in last year's race. 
• Setting the pace for the women in last year's race was Carly Schuerger who placed 30th with a 21.58.6 6K time. 
• The 2023 Cougar Challenge field will consist of 18 women's and 16 men's teams - Cal State East Bay (M/F), San Diego Mesa (M/F),  Cal State Monterey Bay (M/F), Cal State San Bernardino (F), Hawai'i Pacific (M/F), UC San Diego (M/F),  Art U (M/F), Concordia University Irvine (M/F), Salt Lake CC (M/F), Whittier (M/F), Chapman (M/F), Point Loma (F), Cal State San Marcos (M/F), San Bernardino Valley (M/F), Soka (M/F), San Francisco State (M/F), Mt. SAC (M/F), UT San Antonio (M/F)

MEET THE COUGARS

• The women's team returns 13 runners while the men's team has 11 returners from the 2023 squad. 
• Twenty new student-athletes will be wearing Cougar Blue this season (15 women, five men). 
• In their final races of 2023, the men's squad finished 11th while the women's team took 13th place at the NCAA West Regional hosted by Western Oregon. 
• In the CCAA Cross Country Preseason Coaches Polls that were released last week, both the men and women were picked to finish fourth.
• In the preseason edition of the 2024 NCAA Division II West Regional Rankings, as released by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA), the men were ranked 10th. 

THE OLSON FILE

• Head coach Torrey Olson begins his seventh 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).