With a third-place finish at the Western Regionals on Saturday, the Oregon men’s cross country team will most likely be heading to South Carolina for the NCAA Championships.
Only No. 2 Stanford, which finished with 37 points, and No. 8 Portland (91 points) finished higher than the No. 18 Ducks, whose 112 points on the 10,000 meter Dell Urich Golf Course in Tucson, Ariz., could spell NCAA.
Four ranked teams fell to the Ducks, including No. 14 Arizona State (fourth, 116), No. 13 Santa Barbara (fifth, 124), No. 20 Arizona (sixth, 135) and No. 28 Washington (seventh, 140).
Oregon’s All-American junior Jason Hartmann made a run at the regional title and finished in third place overall with a time of 30:57.6. Two Stanford runners led the field: Donald Sage finished with a time of 30:43.4 and Grant Robison came in seven seconds later.
Last year at the same meet, Hartmann finished as the runner-up. This year he was excited to turn in a sound performance after a fall in the Pacific-10 Championship race that featured many of the same runners.
“I thought it was a good race,” Hartmann said. “Strategy-wise, I wasn’t keying off anybody in particular. I just wanted to be in the lead pack and be ready to cover any breaks, and hopefully be with the leaders at the end.”
Redshirt senior Adam Bergquist continued his late-season charge and finished in 11th place, as he did in the Pac-10’s two weeks ago. In Saturday’s race, which featured an even stronger field, he ran to a time of 31:30.8.
“I felt good at the end, and tried to pass as many people heading onto the finishing stretch as I could,” Bergquist said. “I knew the score would be close point-wise, so I made sure I ran smart and saved some energy to move up late.”
All five scorers for Oregon finished in the top-50, as did its sixth runner, Noel Paulson, who finished in 49th with a time of 32:52.7.
Following Bergquist was redshirt freshman Ryan Andrus, in 27th overall with a time of 30:06.2. The other Oregon finishers were Brett Holts (31st, 32:12.7), Eric Logsdon (42nd, 32:40.1) and John Lucas (55th, 33:06.5).
Lucas, who has been consistently finishing with Andrus and Holts, had a disappointing day for the Ducks, but Logsdon was ready to fill the void.
“I think the trademark of any good team is when someone has an off day, another person is right there ready to step up, and Eric Logsdon did that,” head coach Martin Smith said.
The Ducks await today’s announcement of the 13 at-large team spots, when they should receive an invitation to the national championships.