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The UCLA men’s cross country team had a new member compete last Friday at the CS Fullerton Titan Invitational. Freshman Mohammed Qazi, in his first meet for the Bruins, led the team with a third place finish.

Qazi joined the team two weeks ago as a walk-on. His performance, along with sophomore Reggie Oronoz’s ninth place finish, contributed to the men’s taking of second place at the invitational held in Brea.

UCLA head coach Eric Peterson was very pleased with Qazi’s performance. Qazi joined the team under very unusual circumstances and since then has been very competitive both in practice and his Friday debut.

“Friday he showed toughness,” Peterson said. “He showed enough ability to add contribution to the team.”

The race earned Qazi a chance to be in the pool of runners representing UCLA at next week’s Pac-10 meet.

The women’s team also competed in Brea last Friday, dominating the meet. Four Bruins placed in the top five, leading UCLA to its first place victory.

Junior Valerie Flores won the women’s 5000-meter race with a time of 18:12. Following in second was junior Tiffany Burgess, freshman Laura Muller in third, and freshman Leslie Barrie in fourth.

“This is a great indication of how far our program has come” Peterson said. “A year ago we had a good performance but didn’t dominate like this year. It’s rare you nearly sweep a meet.”

The race was very competitive for the women. With the upcoming Pac-10 meet this weekend, Peterson was confident of his leading eight runners but unsure who would fill the remaining two spots. He felt the only fair way to make the decision was to remain as objective as possible. Based on the performances given last Friday, Peterson has decided to run Flores and Muller to finish off Saturday’s roster.

Several of both team’s top runners did not run in the race Friday, using the weekend to prepare for Pac-10 competition. Both teams will use the remainder of this week to rest before UCLA hosts the championships this Saturday. The race will begin at 8:30 a.m. at the Brookside Country Club in Pasadena.