Is it possible to goad Vin Lananna into mentioning a possible national championship run for the women’s cross country team?
“The women did a great job last year. It was exciting all the way through the season,” the Oregon track and cross country coach said. “We were OK in the first meet and then we just got better and better as the season progressed.”
The season progressed into a second-place finish at the 2007 NCAA Cross Country championship meet, 19 years removed from the Ducks’ last such performance. Junior Nicole Blood, the 2006 U.S. junior cross country champion, and sophomores Alex Kosinski and Zoe Buckman placed in the top 40, and Blood and Kosinski walked away with All-America honors.
“Cross country is a sport where you can’t always carry over what you did last year into next year, especially on the women’s side,” Lananna said. “Lots of things change. We get excited about it, we get enthusiastic about it, but I think the athletes really are fired up about getting started.”
Sarah Pearson was the only senior to run in a cross country race for the Ducks in 2007. This year, three senior transfers – Mattie Bridgmon, Melissa Grelli and Lindsey Scherf – will add depth and experience to the women’s team. Grelli finished 10th at the 2007 NCAA championships for Georgetown, and Bridgmon finished 64th running individually and representing Eastern Washington. Scherf won three All-American honors as a Harvard freshman. All three have earned bachelor’s degrees and have transferred to Oregon to pursue graduate degrees and use a remaining year of eligibility. They also make up three-fifths of the seniors on the cross country roster.
“They will make a big difference in our lineup this year. I’m excited about who we have returning and excited about what they’ve done,” Lananna said.
“We’ve been so young for years. That’s been the big challenge at Oregon since I’ve gotten here, is that we’ve always been doing it with young kids.”
And Oregon may see the triumphant return of touted redshirt sophomore Keara Sammons, who finished eighth in her only race of 2007, the Bill Dellinger Invitational, before succumbing to season-ending injuries.
“You can never have enough good women on the team,” Lananna said. “We’re optimistic about the whole team.”
The Ducks finished second in the Pacific-10 Conference to Stanford in 2007, the best performance in a decade. Stanford loses five of its seven runners at the NCAAs, including eighth-place finisher Arianna Lambie. Fourth-place Arizona State had four top-40 finishers at the NCAAs but no seniors among the seven runners. Eighth-place Washington also loses only one senior, but it’s entirely conceivable that Oregon has a shot at its first Pac-10 championship since 1995.
“We’re excited about getting back to the NCAAs, then rolling the dice and seeing what happens,” Lananna said.
Another factor in winning the first women’s national championship since 1987 may be the men’s national championship in 2007. Lananna is willing to acknowledge the closeness of the men’s and women’s teams but insists that support is a two-way street. Whatever pressure may exist is driven from outside forces.
“We have a great camaraderie between the men and the women and I think that the women are very supportive and enthusiastic about what the guys do, and the guys are very supportive and enthusiastic about what the women do,” Lananna said. “I think it’s something that we think we’ve been able to build.”
Grelli, the Georgetown transfer, won the Pre’s Trail Run at Alton Baker Park on Sept. 4 as Oregon tied Oregon State and beat Portland State in a double dual-meet scoring format. Bridgmon finished second, and sophomore Betsy Bies finished in sixth place. Lananna described the unusually early meet – held on the second day of practice – as a “tempo run.”
The Ducks will have three more meets in the state of Oregon, including the Bill Dellinger Invitational and the Pac-10 championships (Oregon will be the host school). Going into the conference championships, Oregon will be in great position to iron out any wrinkles in its quest for a berth to the NCAAs on Nov. 24 in Terre Haute, Ind.
No pressure, ladies.
“We have high expectations for all of them,” Lananna said.