It was a star-studded cast at the Roy Griak Invitational on Saturday, and the Ducks did not shine as brightly as they had hoped. There were 14 top-25 teams in the 36-team men’s field, and 11 top-25 teams in the 32-team women’s meet.
Overall, the No. 16 Oregon men’s team finished 11th with a score of 326, while the women took 28th beating only Iowa State, Coastal Carolina, Army and Youngstown State. Pacific-10 Conference rival Arizona State won the women’s race with 109 points and Arizona finished in third place with 167. No. 9 Providence finished with 139 points for second place.
Wisconsin won the men’s race with Portland and Providence College finishing second and third, respectively. The Ducks did run well enough to beat five top-25 ranked teams — No. 10 Georgetown, No. 11 William and Mary, No. 12 Arizona, No. 20 Minnesota and No. 25 Air Force. That will help them at the end of the season when they are trying to receive an at-large bid to go to the NCAA Championships.
Individually, Jason Hartmann led the Ducks, placing 12th with a time of 23:31.7. Following the All-American junior on the eight-kilometer course were Seth Pilkington (52nd, 25:01.4), Ryan Andrus (84th, 25:15.6), Noel Paulson (85th, 25:16.0), Brett Holts (93rd, 25:19.4), John Lucas (98th, 25:21.9) and Eric Logsdon (116th, 25:29.6).
Junior Carrie Zografos was the first to finish for the Duck women, as she did in Oregon’s last race . She was 99th overall with a time of 22:32.2 over the 6K course. Zografos was followed by Laura Harmon (106th, 22:35.8), Magdalena Sandoval (162nd, 23:04.0), Erinn Gulbrandsen (180th, 23:19.1), Alicia Snyder-Carlson (188th, 23:24.0), Annette Mosey (199th, 23:41.2) and Sara Schaaf (210th, 24:23.8).
Head coach Tom Heinonen questioned the pace at which the women came out of the blocks.
“Our runners started very conservatively, and it backfired on us,” he said. “They moved up during the race but were just too far back.”
In order for Heinonen’s squad to have a shot at going to the NCAA Championships, a feat they have accomplished in 24 of his 26 years as head coach, they need to compete better and beat some of the top ranked teams in the nation — something they have had difficulty doing up to this point.
“It was disappointing, but I still think we can be better,” Heinonen said about Saturday’s race.
The meet was held on the Les Bolstad Golf Course and hosted by the University of Minnesota. The Golden Gopher men finished 17th, while the women ran to a 12th place finish.
The Oregon harriers’ next race is on Oct. 13 at the Furman Invite in Greenville, South Carolina.