The Oregon cross country squads are flying south to Pasadena, Calif., this weekend.
Saturday, the Ducks will race in the Pacific-10 Conference Championship meet for an opportunity to qualify for the NCAA Championship meet.
The Oregon men are ranked fifth in the nation and are second only to Stanford in the Pac-10.
“We’ve had a great training cycle, everybody’s fine physically and we hopefully can peak in proper form the rest of the season,” men’s head coach Martin Smith said.
This season the men raced in the Sept. 28 Roy Griak Invitational, where the Ducks finished as the top team. They have also sent “B” squads to two local races, but the top runners have not raced since Griak.
“It’s definitely made us hungrier,” senior Jason Hartmann said. “I think, as a group, we’re training at a new level, and we’re going into the race more prepared than in the past.”
In the 2001 Pac-10 Championships, the Ducks finished third while Hartmann finished sixth individually.
This year, Oregon is sending seven men to run in the championship. Hartmann will be the only senior in the pack. He is joined by juniors Brett Holts and Noel Paulson, redshirt junior John Lucas, redshirt sophomores Eric Logsdon and Ryan Andrus and redshirt freshman Will Viviani.
“We have a good 1-2 punch up front in Jason Hartmann and Ryan Andrus, who will target to be in the pack up front,” Smith said. “Our success will also be predicated in how tight a pack we have from our No. 3 through 6 runners. If they can keep a tight gap, we should do well.”
On the women’s side, the Ducks look to make a case for an NCAA appearance.
“We want to be top five or better. Beating Washington, Arizona State or UCLA would really help us get into nationals,” women’s head coach Tom Heinonen said.
The Oregon women have run in three meets this season and also sent “B” teams to two local meets. The Ducks took third as a team at the Willamette Invitational, with redshirt senior Carrie Zografos and junior Magdalena Sandoval both out with injuries.
“We haven’t had a race where everybody’s been on at the same time, so getting a good, consistent race from everyone is the main goal,” Zografos said.
“Going into this race, we’ve been as healthy as any Oregon team has ever been at this point of the season,” Heinonen said.
In last year’s Pac-10 Championships, the Ducks finished eighth as a team, and Zografos led the squad, finishing 35th.
Zografos and senior Erinn Gulbrandsen lead the pack of eight runners the Ducks are sending this year. Joining them are Sandoval, redshirt juniors Alicia Snyder-Carlson and Eri Macdonald, junior Laura Harmon, and true freshmen Nicole Feest and Eleanor Gordon.
“(Feest and Gordon) will be called on to be major players for us next year, and this will help them continue to progress,” Heinonen said.
For now, both teams just want to run well Saturday.
“We need to focus on the way we need to run, and it will take care of itself,” Hartmann said.