The Penn State men's cross country team took another stride toward the type of race it will need to run in November.

The Nittany Lions posted 214 points, finishing ninth out of 37 teams, in the Paul Short Invitational, held at Lehigh University on Saturday. While the race was a particularly fast one, featuring a course record set by Liberty's Joshua McDougal (23:43.53), the Lions turned in personal bests in this 8 kilometer distance from many runners. However, regional standouts Georgetown and Villanova remained out of the Lions' reach, finishing first and second, respectively.

"All the other teams got so much better -- it used to not be such a big meet, but now it's probably one of the biggest in the East," senior Chris Foster said. "Considering the level of competition, I feel we did pretty well."

After its performance at home on Sept. 11, the team addressed a glaring problem with the way it started the race. In their opening meet the Lions came out too strongly, then began falling back as the race wore on -- unlike this weekend's race, where they held together until individuals made their moves later in the race.

"The guys ran a perfect race," Groves said. "Everybody improved by 20 or 30 seconds a piece. They ran a race they couldn't have run before."

Setting the pace for Penn State once again was Foster, placing 13th with a time of 24:27.40, a personal record for the 8-kilometer distance. Standout Dan Mazzocco crossed the line second for the Lions in 24:47.39, which was good for 22nd, and another personal best for the Lions.

Groves was pleased with his top finishers, but noted that the next three scoring slots must step up, as they picked up 179 points towards the team's final score.

Personal bests are great, but another pleasant surprise for the Lions was the emergence of two freshman runners, Oskar Nordenbring and Edward Quinn. The duo cracked the top five finishers for the team in their first 8K race. Groves said the jump from a 5-kilometer race to the longer distance "might as well be a marathon."

While the freshmen are showing up for now, Groves is looking forward to a surge by some of his upperclassmen.

"They're doing a good job of trying to step up -- trying to take that step to catch the teams we're aiming at, like Columbia, Georgetown and Villanova."

As the Lions keep improving, they keep their eyes on the Mid-Atlantic Regional, held in Happy Valley in November. After running for personal bests on an 8K course, a 5-mile course awaits them in South Bend, Ind., at the Notre Dame Invitational Friday.

However, the runners understand the importantance of meets this late in the season, instead of focusing too much on the present.

"I don't want a perfect race now -- I want it in Regionals," Mazzocco said.