Lake Forest College Cross Country News & Notes September 11, 1999       Contact:  Scott Rucker, SID WOMEN FIFTH, MEN LACK DEPTH AT TOM BARRY INVITE      In Lake Forest College's first-ever trip to the Tom Barry Invitational, both the men's and women's cross country teams got a sneak peak on Saturday at the competition they will face at the Midwest Conference Championship Meet later this season. Six MWC teams competed in the Invitational, including the host school, St. Norbert College, and the top five team scores from both the men's and women's race were occupied by MWC schools. Forester Head Coach Mike Wajerski added, "Overall it was a good measuring stick for us compared to the rest of the conference. And it shows that the league is pretty strong."      The Lake Forest women's team placed four runners in the top 40 (out of 115 total runners and 13 teams) and took fifth place in the team standings. It was Lake Forest's first five-kilometer race of the season after a 2-miler last week. Junior Sarah Simpson (Colorado Springs, CO) was the Foresters' top finisher with a time of 21:06, good for 26th place and just 17 seconds off her all-time best time. Michelle Murillo (Des Plaines, IL), Jill Hinrichs (Geneseo, IL), Jennifer McGuire (San Francisco, CA), and Jillian Hibler (Salt Lake City, UT) finished 33rd, 38th, 40th, and 47th, respectively, to round out the Lake Forest point-scorers. Wajerski was pleased with the overall performance of his team, "We had good depth, ran fairly smart races, and passed runners all race long. Now that we have one 5K under our belts, we can start setting goals for the rest of the season." At the meet, Lake Forest had five runners run faster than last year's number two runner on the same date.      The men's team, plagued by injuries and missing number one runner Joe Zemaitis (Scottsdale, AZ) who was competing at the International Triathlon Union World Championships in Montreal, Canada, entered the meet with a scant three collegiate meets of experience amongst their four entrants. Wajerski said the lack of experience showed early in the race, "We started out too fast, especially the first mile. But the positive aspect was we didn't give up and all raced until the end." A trio of freshmen - Rob Bahde (Plainfield, IL), Eric Crawley (Braintree, MA), and Sean Smith (Evergreen, CO) - finished 38th (23:42), 40th (23:46), and 48th (24:19), while sophomore Naresh Kavuri (Naperville, IL) was 102nd (31:48) in the four-mile race. After last week's 3.25-mile season opener, it was the farthest race any of the four had ever run. "It was a good step to take before next week's five-mile race," Wajerski added. The men's team finished 11th out of 13 teams.      Both teams will compete at the Concordia University Invitational in Mequon, WI on Saturday, September 18th. Complete Meet Results (LF runners only) -- Men, Women