The Trojan cross country squad kicked off its season Sept. 4 at the Pepperdine Waves Invite, earning second place in a field of five teams and four runners placing in the top 10.

Freshman Monserrat Santillan Silva led the way for USC, finishing the four-kilometer race with the silver medal. In her collegiate debut, Santillan Silva ran a time of 13:41.4, averaging about 5:30 per mile for the entirety of the race — a solid mark for a freshman.

“Overall, [the meet] was fairly solid. We’re still a small team [with] a lot of growing to do,” said Sean Brosnan, the assistant director for distance and cross country, in a postmeet interview with the Daily Trojan. “We only ran with five women [and earned] five scores. So that always puts you in a little bit of a bind when you only run five.”

Santillan Silva was just one of four freshmen who made their collegiate cross country debut at last Friday’s invitational. Among the debuting freshmen was Ivanka Malysheva, who was second on the team and finished fifth overall in the race with a final time of 14:05.8.

Brosnan said the new freshman recruits will be an important part of a smaller squad during the 2026 season. With only 12 athletes on the roster, the size of USC’s group is small, compared to other Big Ten schools.

“[As] a cross country team, we’re small and pretty much a freshman team this year, with a few upperclassmen,” Brosnan said. “We’ve had a few people coming in this season with injuries. So we’re trying to get through those. If we can get a couple of those people running, it’ll make a huge difference.”

Looking beyond this season, one way Brosnan said he hopes to improve the program’s performance going forward is to bring in talented recruits with experience on the national stage.

“We have some really good recruits coming in, and I’m hoping that we can change the dynamic of this team in a positive way,” Brosnan said. “The people we have now are great, and they’re going to be a part of something that we’re growing and trying to build toward in the next few years.”

The lone Trojan upperclassman competing in the invite, senior Paige Unger, was the next USC athlete to cross the finish line, placing seventh overall in the field. She was closely followed by freshman Alexandra Sparno, who took eighth. Unger and Sparno ran times of 14:30.3 and 14:34.1, respectively.

Freshman Emilia Gonzalez capped off the meet for USC’s squad, running a time of 16:06.1 to finish 27th overall.

“[The team is] just kind of getting their feet wet, racing for the first time, and then just getting ready for the rest of the season, with our focus being [the] conference championship in October,” Brosnan said.

Coming off a 2025 season marked by adversity and a last-place finish at the Big Ten Championships, the team is looking to pick off Big Ten opponents and improve upon last year’s disappointing postseason results.

That task will certainly be difficult for the Trojans thanks to the formidable competition in the Big Ten women’s division. Eight Big Ten women’s cross country teams qualified for last year’s NCAA Championships, with those teams looking to be powerhouses once again.

Although Brosnan only joined the team this July, he said he hopes to build “something special” at USC in the near future.

“The big thing for me is just try to build this culture as best as we can,” Brosnan said. “Since we’re such a young team, the whole goal for me as a coach is to get some people who have a lot of experience, [have] been there [and] done that.”

The cross country team will be back in action on Sept. 19 at the UC Riverside Invitational in Riverside, California at 7:15 a.m. The number of Trojans competing at the meet could help reveal whether the team’s injury woes are improving and keep USC afloat in a tough Big Ten conference.