Cross Country
SALEM — Despite missing two of its top runners because of injury, the Oregon women’s cross country team finished third in Saturday’s 28th annual Willamette Invitational at Bush’s Pasture Park.
Junior Laura Harmon finished 14th in the race in 17 minutes and 41 seconds, dropping 10 seconds from her seventh-place time last year.
“I wanted them to come away feeling they raced better than last week,” head coach Tom Heinonen said. “We trained really hard this week, so some of them looked a little tired, as expected, and that was part of the goal — to help tune-up before Pre-Nationals.”
Senior Carrie Zografos and junior Magdalena Sandoval were both held out of the meet with injuries. Zografos sat out with a slight calf injury, while Sandoval had an injured hamstring.
“Erinn (Gulbrandsen) was our highlight runner today,” Heinonen said. “It was by far her best performance for us in a couple of years and a real boost. She gives us a real strong sixth runner when we get Carrie and Magdalena back in
the picture.”
Gulbrandsen (25th), freshman Nicole Feest (26th) and redshirt junior Eri Macdonald (28th) all finished within six seconds of each other.
“During the race, I thought Nicole, Erinn and Eri did a decent job working together, and encouraging each other, especially in a big field,” Heinonen said. “I was also please that several of our runners ran faster today than they have before on this course.”
Redshirt junior Alicia Snyder-Carlson, who was working through sore Achilles tendons last week, finished fifth for the Ducks and 58th overall in 18:57.
Other runners in the meet for Oregon were freshmen Krissy Sonniksen (60th, 18:59) and Chelsea Manesh (71st, 19:16), redshirt sophomore Taylor Bryant (74th, 19:18), redshirt freshman Haripurkh Khalsa (90th, 19:49) and freshman Sabrina Turner (92nd, 19:51).
The Willamette Invitational, hosted by Willamette University, is the largest collegiate cross country meet on the West Coast — 44 teams and 444 finishers raced in two women’s races.
This year’s Invitational was held in honor of Peter Lundblad, a member of the Willamette cross country team who died July 5. The Willamette students who raced and volunteered at the meet wore red ribbons around their heads in his memory.
The women have two weeks to train and rest before heading to Indiana for Pre-Nationals on Oct. 19, where both the men and women are scheduled to race.
Mindi Rice is a freelance writer for the Emerald.