Nicolas Rifflard offered another strong performance to lead Academy of Art to a first place team finish at the 2013 Santa Clara Bronco Open this past Saturday. Rifflard, who comes off back-to-back PacWest Conference Runner of the Week honors, won the race outright in the category of runners from four-year universities, finishing with a new 8k personal record of 24:59.5.
Staying at the front of the pack throughout, Rifflard would beat out top competitors from Fresno Pacific, Grand Canyon, California Baptist, as well as Division I Santa Clara in the race.
“We had Nicolas Rifflard competing up front for the win,” associate head coach Torrey Olson said afterwards. “This is his first real cross country season and it has been great to see actually get to have that experience. He’s very competitive and he’s a gamer. He goes out and runs the race presented to him. He was in it the whole time [today] and ran very even. He’s excited and I’m excited for him.”
