One day, two national titles and an individual champion.
Few teams, collegiate or club, had as good a day as the Oregon running club on Saturday. Both the men and women won the second-annual National Intercollegiate Running Club Association’s national championship, while Keith Laverty claimed the individual title. The championships were held in Bloomington, Ind., on the Indiana University varsity cross country course.
“We had been ranked as favorites for most the year… but the women were fourth going in, so that was a big surprise for us,” said David Reid, running club co-coordinator, who finished in 10th place.
NIRCA has 31 teams in the association, with eight complete women’s and 13 complete men’s teams competing at nationals.

The women beat runner-up and defending champion Penn State by 21 points, placing its top five scoring runners within the first 18 places. Freshman Kristen Mohror led the Ducks with a time of 24 minutes, 8 seconds over the 6-kilometer course.
Mel Horton and Kristin Wheeler placed sixth and seventh overall, 12 and 16 seconds behind Mohror, respectively. Liisa Heinonen (10th) and Lauren Fox (18th) rounded out the Ducks’ scoring runners. Laura Bocko was 33rd overall, and sixth for Oregon’s victorious team.
“I’m not surprised. I had confidence in the team,” Horton said.
The race was only the second time Oregon’s women had fielded a full team.
“For us, it was a matter of fielding a full team,” said fifth-year head coach Tom Heinonen, who spent 28 years as the head coach of the Oregon’s intercollegiate women’s track and cross country program.
The men’s victory was much closer. Led by champion Keith Laverty’s winning time of 26:02, Oregon placed its top five within the top 15 runners, barely ahead of second place Michigan, whose five finished in the top 19. Oregon’s winning score of 42 was five points better than the Wolverines, who were the other favorites entering Saturday’s race.
Anthony Broom (third), David Reid (10th), Joe Crawford (13th) and Conor O’Brien (15th) were the rest of the Ducks’ five scoring runners. Oregon ran 10 runners overall.
“The men’s team ran really confidently early on and I think when they saw the women win, they thought they’d dominate the race,” said Heinonen.
Laverty called the hilly, undulating course “probably the hardest course I’ve ever run, and that’s saying a lot.”
At two kilometers, Oregon held the race’s first, second, third and fourth spots.
“We knew were going to spread out all over the race, but it was important to work together,” said Laverty.
While others dropped, Laverty held onto the lead and finished six seconds ahead of Michigan’s Ricky Reusser. Coming off of his national-leading time of 24:48 posted at the Beaver Classic last month, Laverty, and Heinonen, expected to be in the hunt for a victory.
“Keith became the instant favorite and he ran like he was going to win from the very first step,” Heinonen said.
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