Fresh off a season-best, seventh-place finish at the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational on Oct. 4, USC cross country came into last week already facing a tall task in keeping its momentum going at the upcoming Highlander Invitational. Then, several runners went down with sickness.

“Our girls had a really hard week,” Head Coach Brenda Martinez said in an interview with the Daily Trojan after the invitational, which took place Saturday. “Today we weren’t really focusing on time, necessarily … I just wanted them to have a good showing for themselves.”

Despite losing several of their key contributors, the Trojans still managed to find plenty of strong individual performances — including the debut of a brand-new runner — to finish 18th out of 25 qualified teams. The invitational was USC’s second meet hosted by UC Riverside this season, following its 23rd-place finish at the UC Riverside Invitational on Sept. 27.

The most notable absence Saturday was that of sophomore Holli Prest, who had led the Trojans in their previous three meets. In Prest’s place, senior walk-on Sydney Knodel made her collegiate debut and certainly made the most of it, leading the team with a time of 21:10.6 and finishing 26th overall out of 258 runners.

Redshirt senior Jacqueline Duarte followed with a personal-best time of 21:36.5, improving by 15 seconds from her previous race on the same course in September and earning a top-50 finish. Junior Haley Spoden was next for the Trojans, finishing in 22:28.8 for 111th place, while junior Isabella Duarte ran the course in 23:19.3 to secure 176th.

Senior Lucia Rabolli also made her season debut for the Trojans, finishing in 230th with a time of 24:45.4, and junior Paige Unger closed out the day for USC in 26:15.0 to place 247th.

“I can control what I give [the team], but I think just having a little bit of interruptions kind of set us back,” Martinez said. “But for the girls that were ready to go, they had an amazing showing.”

The Trojans have seen remarkable growth in their depth since failing to compete enough runners to qualify at their first meet of the season in September. USC’s roster is now up to 10 runners, up from five, with four returners — Jacqueline and Isabella Duarte, Spoden, and Rabolli — joined by six newcomers.

Up next, the Trojans will head to Fullerton to compete at the John Elders Titan Invite on Friday at 5 p.m. The meet marks USC’s final competition of the regular season before the postseason begins, starting with the Big Ten Championships on Oct. 31.