With two weeks to go before the championship portion of the season, the Oregon cross country team is starting to scale back in an effort to get ready for its first big race, the Pacific-10 Conference Championships in Corvallis on Oct. 27.
Originally, the No. 1-ranked men and No. 3-ranked women were scheduled to send squads to the NCAA Pre-Nationals meet in Terre Haute, Ind., this Saturday to take on most of the other top teams from around the country. Instead, the Ducks and Arkansas (No. 9 men, No. 5 women) will be the only two top-10 teams to skip the meet, a preview of the Nov. 19 NCAA Championships course.
Oregon head coach Vin Lananna said, “A lot of it has to do with seeing the course … I’ve been there about ten times and most of our athletes have been there. I feel pretty confident that they know it’s an open, fair course.”
Lananna will send his runners to the Mike Hodges Invitational in Clackamas, Ore. Both the Duck men and women will send teams of ten runners, plus “lots of people who will be going up there unattached,” Lananna said.
The goal for the Hodges Invitational and next weekend’s Beaver Classic in Corvallis is to prepare the runners that the coaches feel need more practice racing for the Pac-10, West Regional and NCAA Championships.
“We felt that … we could accomplish what we needed to accomplish right here at home in the state without traveling all the way across the country,” Lananna said. “It’s an opportunity for those that we feel need a race to practice what they’re gonna do at championship-level meets like the Pac-10s, regionals and NCAAs.”
Among the Ducks who scored at the Dellinger Invitational two weeks ago and will be racing this weekend are Carlos Trujillo for the men and Keara Sammons, Bria Wetsch and Betsy Bies for the women.
A year ago, the Duck men swept the top 12 places in the meet en route to a perfect score of 15 points and the women scored 24 points to also claim the team title.
Several top runners, including Shadrack Kiptoo-Biwott, Kenny Klotz, Nicole Blood and Alex Kosinski will not race at Clackamas and will instead take the next two weekends off from racing. Galen Rupp will also not race until the Pac-10 meet when he will make his season debut.
Lananna said that he made the decision to stay in-state in order to keep his team fresh for the championship races.
“At the end of the day it comes down to concentrating on being ready at the end of November,” he said. “We have a very young team and I think the number of times you can get up for race and travel and all that stuff is limited.”
After dealing with several injuries last year, the team is currently pretty healthy.
“We seem pretty good,” Lananna said. “The only one that’s got a little bit of a nick has been (freshman Matt) Centrowitz, but hopefully that won’t be an issue. Everyone else seems to be OK.”
With the end of the season coming up, anticipation within the team is building.
“I think everybody’s appropriately excited for the end of the season,” Lananna said.
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