Four NCAA titles. Sixteen top-four finishes. Twenty-eight top-10 teams. Fifty-seven All-Americans. Four individual champions, including three from Steve Prefontaine. No program in the country has a richer tradition of distance running.
Expectations are always high for the Oregon cross country program, and 2007 is no exception. Last year, the men won the Pacific-10 Conference championship, the West Regional championship and finished fifth at the NCAA Championships, their best finish since 2002. That experience “raised the level” of expectations, head coach Vin Lananna said in a phone interview.
“We hadn’t been to the NCAAs in a few years,” he said. “We return all of the guys except one. The men hope to get on the trophy stand.”
The men haven’t won a trophy for a top-four finish in 11 years, the longest drought since the program’s first in 1963. They finished one place off the trophy stand last year, just one point behind Stanford, a team they beat at both the Pac-10 and West Regional championships.
Juniors Galen Rupp and Shadrack Kiptoo-Biwott and sophomore Diego Mercado highlight Oregon’s returning veterans. All three are All-Americans, although Kiptoo-Biwott’s honor came in 2004, when he was a freshman at the University of New Mexico. Rupp’s sixth-place finish a year ago was the highest by a Duck since Steve Fein finished third in 1999.
For the second straight year, the incoming freshman class includes the Foot Locker national cross country champion, Chad Hall. Also joining the team is Matthew Centrowitz, the two-mile national junior and Pan American junior 1,500m champion.
With the core of the team returning and a strong incoming freshman class, Lananna believes depth will be a strength for the Ducks. “I feel we have 12 guys that on any given day can contribute,” he said.
“We have many guys who can step into a leadership position both as competitors and team leaders. We really changed the team chemistry during the spring last year” when they had four men qualify for the 5,000m at the West Regional, he said.
The clear top runner for the Ducks is Rupp. After placing 11th in the 10,000m at the World Championships, Rupp raced twice in Europe before coming back and joining his Duck teammates. He will likely rest until the middle of October and be ready for the championship part of the season, Lananna said, adding, “Our goal is to be ready by the Pac-10s.”
The depth may allow Hall and Centrowitz to redshirt. “We’ll take the season as it comes,” Lananna said, adding that the decision would be made in October.
Nationally, Lananna said the men have a good chance to make some noise. “It’s a great year to have a solid team,” he said. “There’s no solid favorite for the NCAA title.”
Wisconsin is the preseason No. 1 team in the coaches poll, followed by defending champion Colorado, No. 3 Iona and No. 4 Oregon. All four teams received first-place votes.
Pac-10 and West Region rival Stanford comes in at No. 6.
Women seek NCAA Championships berth
Between 1981 and 2000, the women’s cross country team qualified for the NCAA Championships 18 out of 20 times, with two national titles among 10 top-five finishes. The women’s team hasn’t been back to the NCAA meet since 2000, but is in a position to return to national prominence this year.
“The timetable when I arrived was (to have) a national team in the first three years and we’re at year number three. We would have been there last year except for a couple injuries,” Lananna said.
The Ducks had to deal with injuries to three of their top runners, Nicole Blood, Keara Sammons and Bria Wetsch. All three missed significant time with various ailments.
Wetsch and Blood returned in time to run at the Pac-10 and regional meets, but were not in peak form.
With only two seniors and three juniors on the roster, the team figures to keep improving. Among the top returners are the redshirt freshman Sammons, sophomores Wetsch and Blood, junior Zoe Nelson and senior Sarah Pearson. Nelson was a second-team All-Pac-10 performer in 2006 and Blood finished in the top 40 at the World Junior Cross Country Championships.
Also expected to contribute are true freshmen Betsy Bies and Alex Kosinski, both of whom twice qualified for the Foot Locker national meet.
“We’re trying to shape the women’s team to be nationally competitive in the future,” Lananna said.
Lananna said Colorado and Stanford are the heavy favorites on the women’s side. After that, he said it drops off to a second tier of teams – “But we’re not there yet.”
Stanford, the two-time defending national champion, is the coaches’ preseason No. 1 team, receiving nine of 13 first-place votes. Colorado received the other four. The Ducks were ranked No. 24.
Ducks staying close to home this season
The schedule is set up nicely for the Ducks. All their meets, except for pre-nationals and nationals (held this year in Terre Haute, Ind.), are in the state of Oregon. The next meet is the Bill Dellinger Invitational Sept. 29 at the Springfield Country Club.
Oregon is also scheduled to compete in Clackamas, Ore. Oct. 13 and the Beaver Classic in Corvallis Oct. 20. The Pac-10 Championships are Oct. 27 in Corvallis and the Ducks host the West Regional meet Nov. 10 in Springfield. The NCAA Championships are set for Nov. 19.
The Ducks’ first meet, the Sunriver Open, was Sept. 8 in Sunriver, Ore. Many of Oregon’s top runners didn’t race, and Lananna said the meet was basically being used to give the runners a fitness marker after training all summer.
Nelson and Bies led the Oregon women to a 19-42 win over Portland State in Sunriver, finishing first and second in the three-mile race. Sophomore Jon Thomas, redshirt freshman Daniel Mercado and junior Scott Wall were the top three Duck men, who swept the first seven scoring spots en route to a 15-50 win over PSU.
As the women found out last year, a few injuries can destroy a season, but Lananna thinks the potential is there for this to be a special season for both teams.
“If they can stay healthy I think both teams can experience a great deal of success,” he said.