If the Oregon harriers want to go to the NCAA cross country championships, it’s almost imperative for them to compete well this weekend at the Pre-Nationals in Greenville, S.C.
“We’ve got to perform a lot better at Pre-Nationals, and if we don’t, then it’s a matter of doing all we can in the last two weeks of the season,” women’s head coach Tom Heinonen said.
Held at the Furman University cross country course, the Pre-NCAAs will feature teams from around the country, including a majority of the top-25 ranked teams on both the men’s and women’s sides.
The teams will preview the course that will also host the NCAA Championships, and to try to compile as many head-to-head wins against other potential NCAA qualifiers, which will be beneficial when the at-large bids for the championships are given out.
The Pre-Nationals features so many teams that the field will be broken up into two evenly divided races. There will also be a third race on the same course that day, the Furman Invitational, which will involve many high school runners and other collegiate teams.
The Duck women will be running first in the NCAA Pre-Meet races against No. 1 Colorado and nine other schools in the top-25. There will be a total of 37 teams joining Oregon at the 10:45 a.m. start.
The No. 18 Oregon men will run at 11:55 a.m. against 36 other teams, eight of which are ranked in the top-25, including No. 2 Stanford.
Similar to the last large race in which the Oregon runners ran, Minnesota’s Roy Griak Invitational, the course will be flooded with participants.
“It’s going to be constricted so our athletes need to avoid the Minnesota pitfall, which was not getting out fast enough and trying to run through the field,” Heinonen said. “They are simply going to have to get out faster and get ahead of more people to start. We’ve been training with that in mind for the last 10 days.”
Though redshirt sophomore Tara Struyk’s injured leg has been progressing, she will take another weekend off and sit out of Saturday’s race. She has been able to do a couple of short runs, but Heinonen feels it is too risky to have her run in the competition even though the Ducks could certainly use her help.