There are risks involved in every facet of life.

This past Saturday at the NCAA Pre-Nationals meet in Terre Haute, Ind., the No. 22 Penn State women's cross country team met a challenge filled with risk head-on, with mixed results.

A total of 37 other teams competed in the meet, with 12 of the squads ranked in the top 25 in the FinishLynx NCAA Div. I Cross Country Poll.

Going into the meet, the Nittany Lions knew they were not the favorites to take the title, but came to see how they matched up against some of the nation's top teams, and to get a feel for the course where the NCAA Championships will be held in November.

"We ran extremely well against the best competition there is in the country," women's cross country coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said. "I thought the team did a great job."

No. 2 Stanford took the team title with a total of 57 points. Rounding out the top five were No. 26 Wake Forest in second with 165 points, No. 6 North Carolina State in third with 199 points, and No. 13 Notre Dame and No. 21 Northern Arizona tied for fourth place with 214 points.

The Lions came across the finish line with 421 points, good enough for 14th place.

In the individual competition, history once again repeated itself in the form of true freshman Tracey Brauksieck. The top finisher for the Lions in each meet this season, Brauksieck once again paced the team with her 15th place finish out of 254 runners, crossing the finish line with a time of 20:47.1.

"This was Tracey's biggest competition of her career so far, but she handled the race and the pressure very well," Alford-Sullivan said. "She was relaxed and confident going into the race and really competed well. She is achieving what she had expected to do so far this season and will continue to press for more as the season goes on."

In addition to Brauksieck, other squad members placed for the Lions. Molly Landreth finished 61st with a 21:40.1, while Chelsea Lenge and Michelle Wale finished in 83rd and 127th, respectively.

In two weeks, the Lions will face a new challenge when they take part in the Big Ten Championships at 11 a.m. on Nov. 3 in West Lafayette, Ind.

"We are fairly evenly matched with a couple of the other Big Ten teams, so it's going to be a very exciting meet," Hillard said. "We really think it's attainable for us to be in the top five this year, and we are very pumped for it."