Six years ago, Penn State women's cross-country coach Beth Alford-Sullivan left a track-and-field powerhouse in the form of Stanford to come coach the Nittany Lions. She knew then that she was leaving a great establishment to come rescue a work-in-progress.

But the fact is she knew.

She also knew that coming into The Roy Griak Invitational on Saturday her team was at least a top-10 finisher.

Her premonition was sustained.

The Lions placed ninth among teams with an overall team score of 282.

Alford-Sullivan also knew that the Lions were ready to make some noise in the Big Ten this season and Saturday would be the first true test.

Sure enough, she was right.

Out of the five Big Ten schools who competed in Minneapolis, the Loins finished first among teams in their conference.

However, those five schools did not include defending Big Ten champion, Michigan, or second-place finisher, Michigan State.

The hometown school, Minnesota, was the closest Big Ten team to the Lions, 87 points behind.

Still, the coach isn't satisfied, and neither is the team.

"We did OK, we didn't compete on our A-game," Alford-Sullivan said.

The Lions knew that Roy Griak posed a difficult course on which to run, and it was to a certain extent. Packed like a can of sardines, runners took more than a mile before the elite athletes had enough space to distance themselves from the bunch.

Molly Landreth, arguably the best runner on the Lions squad, was her team's top runner again, finishing the course in a time of 21:46. She finished 14 seconds quicker than her performance at the Spike Shoe Invitational two weeks ago.

The team also witnessed the return of one its star runners who hadn't raced since April, Tracey Brauksieck. Brauksieck was diagnosed with iron-deficiency anemia last spring and Alford-Sullivan held her out of the first meet of the season to ensure she was fully recovered.

Brauksieck didn't disappoint her team.

She scored in her first race back for the Lions with a time of 22:47, and her teammates were elated to see her running again.

"She has this bounce in her step, she's gonna have a strong season," said Kayla Matrunick, Brauksieck's teammate.

Matrunick, a senior who has scored in two consecutive meets for the Lions, said she and Brauksieck went back-and-forth trading positions during Saturday's race.

The Lions hope their competitive nature early on will continue throughoutthe season and into Big Ten competition .

"We've got a good team developing," Alford-Sullivan said.