Cross Country Notes
With 12 returning starting runners between the Oregon men’s and women’s cross country teams, the Ducks started the season ahead of many other squads.
The men finished first at the Sept. 28 Roy Griak invitational, and jumped from ninth to fifth in the polls. Over the past three weeks, the Ducks have been training and resting for the Nov. 2 Pacific-10 Conference championship meet while keeping their fifth-place national ranking.
The women have been busy this season. Following the Griak meet, where they finished eighth as a team, the women raced in the Willamette Invitational on Oct. 5. They finished third in the Division-I team race. Saturday, the women tested out the course for the national meet and placed 18th, finishing ahead of three nationally-ranked teams.
“We’re so much better than we were last year,” women’s head coach Tom Heinonen said.
The women were unranked at the end of last season, and this year they are determined to race at the NCAA Championship meet.
The men seem to have already secured a place at Nationals. The Ducks are the second-ranked team from the West region, with top-ranked Stanford the only regional foe above Oregon in the national poll.
Both Oregon teams have runners who have been to the NCAA Championships before, and both are set on going back.
Heinonen has announced his retirement for the end of the 2003 track and field season, and his women’s squad wants to earn a trip to Nationals for itself and for him.
Men’s head coach Martin Smith has assembled a strong team, led by senior Jason Hartmann. Hartmann, a two-time All-American, could become the eighth Duck ever to earn All-American honors three times.
Post Pre-Nationals
The women harriers got another meet under their belts Saturday as they raced against top teams from across the country. They finished 18th as a team, with redshirt senior Carrie Zografos and junior Magdalena Sandoval still healing from injuries.
“They did a good job in a pressure-packed situation,” Heinonen said.
Zografos led the Oregon women with a 53rd-place finish. Sandoval finished fourth for Oregon, placing 122nd overall.
Oregon finished ahead of three nationally-ranked teams: Florida State, Dartmouth and Idaho.
Pac-10 runs hard,
plays hard
Stanford currently has a hold on the Pac-10 cross country lead, with the men ranked first in the national poll and the women ranked second. Both teams won their respective race at the Pre-National meet Saturday, with each team’s top runner finishing second overall.
The Pac-10 has four teams in both the men’s and women’s Division-I polls. Joining Oregon and Stanford in the men’s poll are 25th-ranked Arizona State and 35th-ranked Washington.
With second-ranked Stanford leading the way in the women’s national poll, Arizona State is ranked 17th, while UCLA is ranked 19th and Washington is ranked 25th.
Pac-10 Championship changes
The Pac-10 conference is raising the number of runners a single team can enter at the championship meet.
As with most meets, the Pac-10 had limited team size to seven. Starting at the Nov. 2 meet, that restriction has been lifted and team sizes may be increased at the school’s discretion.
“That’s good for us right now. It gives us more flexibility in selecting the team,” said Heinonen.
Mindi Rice is a freelance writer
for the Emerald.