In a preview of the Big 8 Conference Championships to be hosted on October 31st, the American River women's cross country team took second place at the Modesto Pirate Invitational on Friday, September 13th. Competing with a different strategy, the ladies worked well together to accomplish their main goal of closing their team gap from the first to fifth competitor. On Friday the gap was a mere 1:09, while last week in Fresno it was over two minutes. The most improved Beaver was Iuliia Lytvynova who decreased her time by 34 seconds with a personal best of 20:45. Also competing for ARC were Tara Christopherson, Kandace Compton, Jocelyn Schmidt, Zoe Worobel, Natalie Berania, Kyrah Vaughn and Alexa Lua. The team will travel to San Francisco on Thursday this week for the Lou Vasquez Invitational in Golden Gate Park.