Long Beach State's Jim Grabow (Running Springs, CA) and UC Santa Barbara's Lindsay Christman (Santa Cruz, CA) earned Big West Cross Country Male and Female Athlete of the Week honors after stellar performances in meet action on September 11.

Grabow, in his first collegiate race for Long Beach State, won the individual title of the UC Irvine/JL Design Enterprises Invitational with a time of 25:21.2 on the 8K course. It marked the first major invitational win for the 49ers since 1989. Grabow, a junior, led from start to finish and beat his next closest competitor by over 14 seconds. The 49ers finished the meet in sixth place out of 12 teams.

Christman came in third place out of 109 runners to help UC Santa Barbara dominate the Fresno State Invitational. The junior ran the 5K course in a time of 18:12 as the Gauchos finished third through seventh. The Gauchos scored 20 points as their top six runners crossed the line within three seconds of each other.

Long Beach State competes next on Sept. 25 at the Stanford Invitational. UC Santa Barbara has next week off and returns to action on Sept. 25 with the top seven runners competing at the Roy Griak Invitational and the remainder of the squad at the Stanford Invitational.