It’s all over.
After finishing 12th at the Western Regional Championships in Tucson, Ariz., the Oregon women’s cross country team will not advance to the NCAA Championships later this season.
If the Ducks had finished in the top two they would have automatically received an invitation, but the competition was fierce and included five top-25 teams in the 23-team race.
No. 1 Stanford won the regionals with 39 points and was followed by No. 8 Arizona (second, 81 points), No. 11 Arizona State (third, 85), No. 24 Washington (fourth, 118) and No. 17 UCLA (fifth, 164).
Redshirt junior Carrie Zografos, who was sick most of last week, could not find the energy to lead the team as she had done in every race in which she had entered before Saturday. Zografos finished fourth on the squad and 97th overall in a time of 24:25.8 over the 6,000-meter course.
Leading the way for the Ducks was sophomore Laura Harmon, who finished 45th overall with a time of 23:07.1. The race marked the first time Harmon had paced on the Oregon squad, and she made it clear that she was over the illnesses that had plagued her over the past month.
“It felt good to finally get over the health problems from the past few meets: a kidney infection at Furman (pre-nationals) and over-hydration and lack of electrolytes at Pac-10s,” Harmon said. “I felt so much better at the end, it actually surprised me how much I had left.”
Junior Erinn Gulbrandsen produced her best finish of the season, placing second on the team and 75th overall with a time of 23:59.5. Gulbrandsen said the experience of three years on the squad is starting to help her, and that she was more comfortable during the race Saturday.
“I got into the flow and started to pick off runners all the way to the finish,” she said.
The other Oregon finishers were Magdalena Sandoval, who was hampered by a quadriceps injury, (78th, 24:03.7), Annette Mosey (81st, 24:07.2) and Alicia Snyder-Carlson (125th, 25:07.5).
Head coach Tom Heinonen said that his team competed well, but that the race showed that teams must be healthy in order to win championships.
With an early end to the season, the women have time to recuperate and get back to 100 percent before the track season in spring.