It was a good weekend for the Oregon men’s cross country squad as the Ducks came out of the Pacific-10 Championships in Scottsdale, Ariz., with a third place finish and raised hopes for a berth in the NCAA Championships at the end of the season.
No. 2 Stanford ran away with the championship after scoring 27 points, but it was a close battle for second as No. 19 Arizona State (75 points) squeaked by No. 20 Oregon (78 points).
The Ducks beat two higher-ranked teams, No. 13 Arizona and No. 24 Washington, and also took out UCLA, Washington State and California. The wins against Arizona and Washington should help the Ducks receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships if they do not place in the top two at the Western Regionals.
The teams competed at an 8,000-meter course at the Pavilion Lakes Golf Course near the Arizona State campus in near 90-degree temperatures.
Oregon’s top runner, junior Jason Hartmann, was a favorite to win the event but was hindered by a mid-race fall that caused him to drop at one spot. He was running near the fifth position in the race when he was tangled up with a Stanford runner. Hartmann picked himself up and recovered enough time to finish in sixth place with a time of 24:30.9.
“I put myself in the position to fall, so I guess I had to deal with the consequences of falling,” Hartmann said. “But I had to try to get back up and finish the job I had to do. After the race I was sore, but during the race I was running on adrenaline and you don’t really feel it.”
Finishing second for the Ducks and 11th overall with a time of 25:00.4 was senior Adam Bergquist, who has seen limited action this season. Hartmann said Bergquist ran “exceptionally well.”
Other finishers for Oregon were sophomores John Lucas (17th, 25:10.0) and Brett Holts (21st, 25:17.2), and redshirt freshmen Ryan Andrus (23rd, 25:23.8) and Eric Logsdon (30th, 25:50.1).
Freshman Seth Pilkington was pulled out of the race by head coach Martin Smith for health reasons. Pilkington collapsed in the Ducks’ last race due to dehydration and Smith said he did not want to risk a similar Pilkington collapse in a race with hot temperatures.
The top finishers in the race were Stanford’s Grant Robison (24:04.0), Arizona State’s Fasil Bizuneh (24:06.4) and Stanford’s Donald Sage (24:11.4).
Hartmann and the rest of the harriers are optimistic about the rest of the season.
“We’re steadily improving each time we go out there and hopefully we’ll pull it all together at districts,” Hartmann said.