The No. 18 Oregon men’s cross country team came out of Greenville, S.C., with a fifth-place finish and a feel for the course that it hopes to run at the NCAA Championships.
The Pre-NCAA Invitational, held on the Furman University cross country course, featured two separate races in both the men’s and women’s fields. The Oregon men, who ran in the 35-team black race, lost only to Stanford, North Carolina State, Northern Arizona and Brigham Young University.
Oregon finished ahead of higher-ranked teams like No. 11 Colorado State and No. 16 Michigan State, which should help the Ducks move up in the polls.
All-American junior Jason Hartmann led the Ducks with a 17th-place finish in a time of 25:03 over the 8-kilometer course.
Behind Hartmann, junior John Lucas finished in 37th overall with a time of 25:25. The other Oregon finishers were Ryan Andrus (41st, 25:28), Brett Holts (65th, 25:52), Eric Logsdon (73rd, 25:58) and Noel Paulson (88th, 26:07).
Top-ranked Colorado won the other men’s race, which featured a record-shattering time of 23:31 from Eastern Michigan’s Boaz Cheboiywo. The previous record of 24:00 was set in 1997 by Colorado’s Adam Goucher.
On the women’s side, Oregon finished 26th in the 34-team purple race. Head coach Tom Heinonen now knows where his teams stands.
“I’m proud of the way our people raced,” he said. “We will not go to the NCAAs, but we’re ready to make a run at Washington State for a top-six finish in the Pac-10.”
As she has done in every race that she has run this season, redshirt junior Carrie Zografos led the Oregon runners, finishing 75th overall while covering the 6K course in 22:45.
Sophomore Magdalena Sandoval finished behind Zografos, at 133rd overall, with a time of 23:30. Also scoring for the Ducks were Erinn Gulbrandsen (150th, 23:42), Annette Mosey (156th, 23:52), Laura Harmon (173rd, 24:04) and Sara Schaaf (188th, 24:29).
No. 11 Georgetown won the purple race, beating top-ranked Colorado and No. 4 Arizona State, among others. In the other women’s race, which was won by Stanford, Washington’s Sabrina Monro continued her winning ways, which makes the Pre-NCAAs her fourth win out of four races this season. Her time of 20:26 also beat the previous course record by 25 seconds.
In contrast to Oregon’s last race in Minnesota, Heinonen was pleased with his team’s strategy for Saturday’s race.
“Everyone got out faster than in Minnesota,” he said. “It was our attempt to make a breakthrough, but we were really only able to essentially hold our own, rather than moving up from there.”
Both teams have the next weekend off before heading to the Pacific-10 Conference Championships in Arizona.