CORVALLIS – For 7,500 meters of Saturday’s Pacific-10 Conference men’s 8,000-meter championship, Galen Rupp and Shadrack Kiptoo-Biwott strode side-by-side, slowly distancing themselves from the chase pack.
As the pair of Duck juniors approached the finish line at Trysting Tree Golf Course, Kiptoo-Biwott sprinted ahead of Rupp, the defending Pac-10 champion, to claim his own title, adding to the Mountain West Conference championship he won as a freshman at New Mexico in 2004.
“I wasn’t actually planning to do that, but I got too excited and just took off,” he said.
Both Kiptoo-Biwott and Rupp finished in less than 23 minutes, crossing the line in 22:54.9 and 22:58.4, respectively. No other Ducks were in the top ten, but a group of four Oregon runners placed 11th through 14th, sealing the No. 1 men’s team’s second-consecutive Pac-10 title over No. 15 Stanford 39-55. Co-No. 8 California was third with 70 points and co-No. 19 UCLA had 97 points to finish fourth.
“When you have your top two guys go one-two, it kinda takes a lot of the pressure off your three through seven guys,” A.J. Acosta, the 12th-place finisher, said. “You can run a little bit more relaxed knowing that you have two low sticks so you have a little bit more margin of error.”
Oregon’s 39 points is its lowest score since 1990 and the lowest score at the meet since 2004.
“They looked better than I had anticipated,” coach Vin Lananna said.
“Anytime you’re number one coming in, you’ve got a big target on your back and the fact that they were able to handle it and come through is big,” Rupp said.
Women get highest finish in 10 years
The No. 2 Oregon women got a pair of top-five finishes from Alex Kosinski and Nicole Blood, but it wasn’t enough to overcome No. 1 Stanford as the Cardinal women won their 12th-straight Pac-10 team title. Senior Arianna Lambie won her third-straight individual championship, finishing side-by-side with teammate Teresa McWalters.
Kosinski surged at the end of the 6K race, but wasn’t able to catch the Stanford duo.
“In the middle of the race they kinda got in the lead and kinda stuck with that lead the whole race,” Kosinski said. “I tried to finish hard, but I didn’t think I’d be able to catch them.
Blood, who has been nursing a sprained ankle, finished fourth, holding off Arizona State’s Jenna Kingma and Washington’s Anita Campbell.
“Every point counted, so I knew I was going to fight like hell,” she said.
Bria Wetsch and Zoe Buckman finished together in 16th and 17th and Zoe Nelson rounded out the Duck scorers with her 24th-place finish.
Stanford scored 48 points to beat the Ducks’ 64 points and No. 5 Arizona State’s and No. 9 Washington’s 68 points.
The Ducks were fourth last year, and haven’t placed as high as second since 1997.
“Considering where we were last year and considering where we are this year, they’re the most improved group I’ve ever seen,” Lananna said.
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