The newest poll from the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll has been released, and the Oregon men and women did not come off favorably, to say the least. The Duck men fell from first to seventh in the national ranking, while the women fell from second to fourth nationally.
 
But before I continue, I must yet again refer back to the gospel of Oregon cross country head coach Vin Lananna: Rankings don’t matter. Polls mean nothing. This is no indication of how the teams may do on Nov. 23, the day of the NCAA Cross Country Championships. It doesn’t pain me in the least to say that Lananna is right; cross country running is so inherently variable that rankings are often rendered useless.
 
Friday’s Bill Dellinger Invitational does fall in accord with the rankings in one respect: Neither the Oregon men nor the Oregon women look like national title contenders right now.
 
Let’s start with the women, who raced first on the day and received a thorough beating in the team standings at the hands of the Villanova Wildcats. In truth, the Ducks have plenty of new faces and multiple decisions to make regarding the young runners, but Villanova provided a stirring example of team running. The Wildcats’ performance wasn’t nearly as impressive from start to finish as Washington was during the 2008 Pacific-10 Conference Championships, but they executed their pack-running strategy perfectly, posting a 1-3-4-6-8 finish. The Ducks, meanwhile, saw runners fall back into the pack while relying on inexperienced runners to carry them.
 
Still, there was plenty to like and to gain from the Ducks’ race at the Dellinger. While junior Alex Kosinski ran very well, Blood’s performance (15th overall, 13 team points) is an anomaly based on her track record. Whether or not she races again before the Pac-10 Championships, which will be held on Oct. 30 in Long Beach, Calif., we can reasonably expect a performance as good or better than Saturday.
 
Hasay, a heralded true freshman, finished sixth in a crowded field in her first race as a collegian — a result that impressed Lananna and most observers. Sure, we’d all love to see the prep phenom come out and dominate a race from start to finish, but Hasay now has a test of just how fast everyone is at the collegiate level. This will only help her down the road.
 
Senior Lauren Zaludek and sophomore Claire Michel finished 12th and 13th overall, respectively, both impressive finishes that fans would love to see repeated on a different stage. Meanwhile, the Ducks saw two more runners (sophomore Bronwyn Crossman and freshman Taylor Wallace) record top 25 finishes and two more (junior Zoe Buckman and senior Bria Wetsch) record top 40 finishes. That’s nine Ducks, all in the top 40, for Lananna to choose from as he attempts to build a seven-woman team for further competition.
The top three of Kosinski, Blood and Hasay are set in stone; Crossman’s progress from last season (she finished 36th overall at last year’s Dellinger) makes her a likely candidate along with Buckman (16th last year), leaving possibly two spots for Wallace, Wetsch, Zaludek and Michel, along with a host of other freshman (Becca Friday, Anne Kesselring, Chloe Steinbeck) that Lananna will likely elect to redshirt. May the best women win.
 
The men’s race provides a far less clear picture. Matthew Centrowitz (fourth place), Danny Mercado (eighth) and A.J. Acosta (23rd) were the Ducks’ best runners at the Dellinger, running a consistent race and hitting their strides long after other runners. Luke Puskedra (11th overall), Kenny Klotz (35th overall) and Jordan McNamara (36th overall) faded badly over the last 1,000m of the 8,000m course; all three have much more talent than their performances indicate, especially Puskedra, who finished third at last year’s Dellinger.
Oregon saw solid runs from Diego Mercado (25th overall) and freshman Mac Fleet, who competed unattached (26th), but Lananna will be hard-pressed to pull Fleet’s redshirt unless it meant a potential national title. That was hard enough to see out of this group without its top two runners from last season (Shadrack Biwott and Galen Rupp), but for now it means that the Ducks still have a ways to go to learn to run as a team.
Only three more scheduled races stand between the Ducks and the Pac-10 Championships. Lananna, the cross country coach of the year each of the past two years, has his work cut out for him on both ends. The Pac-10 title, however, is truly second in Lananna’s mindset to the NCAA title. Perhaps the Ducks’ performances at the Bill Dellinger Invitational weren’t all they could have been, but they are much better than they showed.
 
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