Chris Nirschel and the Penn State men's cross country team couldn't have scripted their first race any better.

The team opened its 2005 slate at the Lock Haven Invitational on Saturday and emerged with a first-place finish.

"The race went pretty much exactly the way we wanted it to go," said Nirschel, a second-place finisher behind Lock Haven's Ryan Blood.

The Lions out-ran the rest of the eight-team field and finished with 31 points, far ahead of second place Lock Haven's 47 points. Along with Nirschel, the team placed three more runners, Dan Mazzocco, Oscar Nordenbring and Sean Kennedy, in the top 10.

Penn State was the only Division I team in the field and used the race as an opportunity to take a laid back approach and gain some early experience. As a 10K race, it was also the longest race the team will run until the NCAA Regionals in November.

The Lions opened the race slowly and took a group oriented approach throughout the early stages.

"We had some guys, about eight of them, grouped up in sixth or seventh place at the mile mark," Penn State men's cross country coach Harry Groves said.

"They just kept on moving up as they went along."

Although they started out slowly, the flat set up of West Branch Cross Country Course allowed the Lions' runners to quickly find passing lanes and become more aggressive.

"[The course] was pretty flat and open; we were able to pass easily on it," Mazzocco said.

In the final stages of the race, the team abandoned its group approach and allowed some runners to split up and make a move on the leaders.

"We spread things out a little bit towards the end," Nirschel said. "We didn't panic after getting behind, and I was able to gain some ground on Blood."

Nirschel was unable to completely overtake Blood and finished with a time of 32:08.72, fifteen seconds behind Blood. Mazzocco finished five tenths of a second behind Nirschel in third place. Nordenbring and Kennedy came in fifth and eighth place, respectively.

Although the race was not scored and won't give the team any NCAA points, it certainly served its purpose and should give the team a necessary confidence boost after its struggles last season. The Lions failed to win a race in 2004 and finished ninth in the Big Ten Championships.

This season, the team accomplished its goal of getting an early win and gaining some momentum.

"We really wanted to log an early win," Groves said. "It was a pretty decent run for this time of the year and put us where we wanted to be."

The tougher races will begin right away next Saturday when they host top Division I teams for the Spiked Shoe Invitational at the Penn State Blue Course.