1987.
That’s the last time an Oregon varsity squad won an NCAA championship.
That varsity squad was the women’s cross country team.
The men’s and women’s cross country teams will look to end that drought today in Terre Haute, Ind.
The men’s team, which is currently running a 30-year title dry spell of its own, has been ranked No. 1 nationally since the beginning of October and has been unanimously No. 1 since Oct. 16.
That gives them the favorite tag heading into the meet, which starts at 9 a.m., but head coach Vin Lananna isn’t buying any of the hype.
“I’ve been working with cross country teams for a long time and I would say that in all the years I’ve been doing this I’ve not seen a field that has quite as much parity as I’ve seen this year,” he said. “Typically there’s one team that is going to score very few points and I don’t think that’s going to be the case this year. I think there are five, six teams that have a crack at winning it.”
The Ducks have beaten several of those teams, including No. 4 UTEP and No. 5 Wisconsin, but also looming large will be 2006 champion No. 2 Colorado, No. 3 Iona and No. 6 Northern Arizona.
Individually, Galen Rupp is one a group of three favorites, which also includes Josh McDougal of Liberty and Lopez Lomong of Northern Arizona.
“Nothing’s a given at that level, but I really like my chances,” Rupp said.
The women’s team, which is at the meet for the first time since 2000, will have to run without Keara Sammons. The redshirt freshman, who placed third for the Ducks at the Dellinger Invitational in September, has an adductor muscle injury that has forced her to miss the Pacific-10 Conference Championships and the West Regional Championships as well as the NCAAs.
The young team – the only upperclassmen are junior Zoe Nelson and senior Sarah Pearson – is not satisfied with just qualifying for the meet; they want to win the program’s first trophy since it claimed second in 1988.
“We know we’re capable of placing there,” sophomore Nicole Blood said. “It’s not really about ‘we just made it there,’ because if we did that we’d just go in and run whatever, but we’re gonna go in there and try to prove more.”
Blood and freshman Alex Kosinski will have to run strong races in order to give the No. 3 Ducks a chance at getting a trophy.
“I’m gonna try to run with the front pack,” Blood said. “I’m gonna try to place top 10 – that’d be a great race for me.”
The two teams ranked ahead of Oregon heading into the meet are No. 1 Stanford and No. 2 Florida State.
Whether or not they bring back that elusive championship, Lananna thinks his program is established as a perennial contender.
“I think it’s a legitimate player this year and every year,” Lananna said, “and I think that’s what the trademark of a good program is, is to be in a position to do something every single year and we’re setting the stage for that to happen.”
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