Blue and white flashes of colors went by the crowd. There was a lengthy pause before the rest of the cross-country teams ran by.

At the Penn State Spiked Shoe Invitational, the Penn State women's cross-country team showed what several years of rebuilding and hard work can do. Last year the Penn State squad finished first at this event but had only five runners in the top ten. This year they earned the top eight consecutive spots.

Now with a win under its belt, the team is more confident than ever about its strength and competing in the bigger meets looming ahead.

"This team has been on a mission," said Penn State women's cross-country coach Beth Alford-Sullivan. "It is just much better in the six, seven, eight, nine, ten spots."

Members of the squad expressed their excitement after the win and the hope for the future.

"It was an awesome team feeling," Landreth said. "It was our goal to run as a pack. Now I can't wait to get to bigger meets."

Youngstown State freshman Lisa Davies was the first runner, not in blue and white, to cross the finish line, Saturday, with a time of 22:04.03. Davies was almost a minute behind the winner, junior Molly Landreth (21:19.67) and not within reach of Penn State's Kayla Matrunick, who took the No. 8 spot.

Five other Penn State runners finished out the top twenty. There were 157 runners total.

Alford-Sullivan attributes the improvements in performance to better health and much better quality running. Another factor is the training the women's team implements in the summer time. Until August, members must make the effort to stay in shape on their own. This initiative helped the team kick off their season with an overwhelming win.

After several years of competing together, the camaraderie between the runners has formed. Because of this team spirit, many team members felt the need to push themselves over the summer, hoping it would bring them all one step closer to the goal of taking Big Ten this year. Saturday was the first sign of that hard work.

"We have more developed runners," said senior team captain Maureen Thomas. "People have really stepped up as far as training and everything else."

The team is now ready to move ahead and see where it ranks.