WACO, TEXAS – The University of the Incarnate Word cross country teams traveled to the Baylor Bear Twilight Invitational on Tuesday night to open the 2015 season.  The meet took place at the Heart of Texas Soccer Fields. (Women's, Men's)

The UIW women's team finished in fifth place with 125 total points.  Senior Rainy Castaneda (Laredo/United South HS) picked up where she left off last year by leading the squad.  She covered the 4-kilometer course in 14:30.9, the fastest time of her career for that distance.  She finished in 12th place overall and was followed by Danielle Martinez (New Braunfels/Canyon HS).  The freshman finished in 16th place in a time of 14:40.5.

The rest of the scoring runners for the Cardinals were freshman Emily Wilson (New Braunfels/New Braunfels HS) and sisters, Vivian and Stephanie Diaz (El Paso/Chapin HS).  Wilson crossed the line in 15:22.0 while Vivian finished in 15:24.0 and Stephanie in 15:37.7.

Baylor won the women's team title with 29 points.  They were followed by SMU (58), North Texas (73), TCU (81), UIW (125) and UT-Arlington (165).  Baylor's Maggie Montoya was the individual champion running a time of 13:24.4.

"Today was a promising opening to the season," said UIW head coach Derek Riedel.  "The women started the day and although they didn't run what I or they were hoping we had some promising individual finishes. Danielle Martinez was fearless and really went after Rainy. Our team average was 21 seconds faster than last year's opening 4K so there are some positives to take from the meet."

The UIW men finished in fourth place out of five teams with 89 points.  Freshman Garett Cortez (Schertz/Steele HS) was the team leader in his first career race.  He crossed the line for the 6-kilometer race in a time of 19:19.0 and finished in 15th place.

The Cardinals had a strong grouping of runners with only a 27-second difference between the first and fifth runners.  Senior Mario Mora (Converse/Wagner HS) finished 21st in a time of 19:32.3 while sophomore Jorge Quintero (El Paso/Burgess HS) was right behind in 19:36.5.  Two other freshmen, Deion Hardy (Temple/Temple HS) and Sam Farrell (Lufkin/Hudson HS) each finished less than 10 seconds behind Quintero.

"The men are leaps and bounds better than last year," said Riedel.  "I knew our freshman class would shine and they did just that today. Garett Cortez and Mario Mora led the men from the very beginning and Garett had a real strong last 800 to lead the men and finish as the top freshman in the field!  Our men's average today (19:35) was 33 seconds faster than last year's opening 6K."

North Texas dominated the meet and took the top five spots in the race.  James Coleman was the individual champion in 18:21.6 and each of his teammates finished less than 16 seconds behind him.  Baylor took second with 65 points while UT-Arlington (82) was third, UIW (89) was fourth and TCU (114) was fifth.