Divinity and Arakelyan Pace Matadors at Kim Duyst Twilight

Saturday, September 12

Turlock, CA

California State University at Northridge

Kim Duyst Twilight

Photo by: Jacob Yadao

Divinity and Arakelyan Pace Matadors at Kim Duyst Twilight

9/12/2026 11:03:00 PM | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country

CERES, Calif. --- Adam Divinity and Lilit Arakelyan led the way for the Matadors at the 2026 Kim Duyst XC Invitational on Saturday at River Oaks Golf Course hosted by Stanislaus State.

The CSUN men finished in second overall with a score of 49 (4-8-9-13-15-18-19), second to only UC Santa Barbara who finished in first place with a score of 41. The top-7 men posted an average finishing time of 25:01.4. The CSUN women finished with an average time of 23:21.6.

MEN
Divinity paced the Matador men with the eighth fastest 8k time in school history at 24:33.8, good enough for fifth place overall in the meet. Junior Thomas Achten was not far behind, as he ran a mark of 24:38.3, which was good for ninth place in the race.

Finishing 10th in the race was senior Steven Valdez. Valdez ran a time of 24:49.5 capping off a three man finish in the top 10 for the Matadors.

Junior Elijah Stenberg finished in the top 15 at 15th place with a time of 25:01.1

Rounding out the CSUN top five was Erick Leal. In Leal's first Matador race, he finished in 18th place with a time of 25:04.8

Diego Rodriguez and senior Ja'Patrick Smith finished in 25th and 26th with times of 25:29.6 and 25:33.0, respectively

WOMEN
Arakelyan, the senior, finished with a mark of 21:45.3. Her time was good for 11th overall. She finished 13 places better than the last time she raced this event.

Senior Citaly Ruiz finished in 41st place with a time of 23:41.8 while sophomore Zyanya Torres finished with a personal best 6k time of 23:54.0, good for 48th place.

In her Matador debut, Keona Mataalli raced a time of 24:05.4 to take 51st place.

ACCORDING TO COACH JASON ZARB-COUSIN
"The plan coming into the meet was working on running in packs and we executed it really well. I felt like the team really bought into what we were looking to accomplish and it resulted in a lot of great individual races. This being the first meet of the season, I am really happy with where we are as a team after a long training block. We are where we need to be at this point of the season."

THE ROAD AHEAD
CSUN returns to action in five days on Sep. 17 for its first of three races in Riverside this season. The first contest is the annual UCR Invitational which will take place at the UCR Ag Ops Course.

CSUN will then gear up for its first of five races in October as it will travel to Santa Clarita for the Master's Invitational hosted by The Master's University at Central Park on Oct. 3.

#GoMatadors