If things weren’t going the way the men’s cross country team expected at this point in the season, all was forgotten on Saturday.
No. 18 Oregon entered the 2003 Pacific-10 Conference Championship at Pullman, Wash., with the goal of coming in second behind Stanford.
The Ducks did just that.
Behind a strong performance from senior Brett Holts — who finished the race sixth overall — Oregon was able to outpace its nearest competitor, No. 27 Washington, by two points. Stanford, the defending Pac-10 and National Champion, handily won the race with 23 points.
It was the second time in as many years the Oregon squad finished second at the Pac-10 Championship, and the third time in head coach Martin Smith’s five-year tenure that the team finished second overall.
Holts’ career-best finish earned him a spot in the first-team All Pac-10, while teammates Eric Logsdon — eighth at 25:09 — and Ryan Andrus — 11th at 25:18 — helped bolster a strong finish. The Ducks needed every point they could get, and the trio of All-Americans were on the same page for the first time this season.
Oregon was able to outpace Arizona and Arizona State, two teams that recently surpassed Oregon in the rankings. It was a pair of Oregon natives that stole the show Saturday as Ian Dobson and Grant Robison of Stanford finished first and second overall, with times of 24:34 and 24:36, respectively.
The women also duplicated their 2002 Pac-10 Conference Championship finish of a year ago.
Senior Magdalena Sandoval led Oregon with a fifth overall finish at a time of 21:46. Eri Macdonald and her 16th place 22:20 finish followed Sandoval.
“I was really happy with my race,” Sandoval said. “Coming in I thought top 10 was realistic. I was really pleased that I was able to race hard the whole way and still finish well. The Pac-10 is a great conference, and it was fun to do well against a challenging field.”
No. 1 Stanford won it’s eighth-straight Pac-10 title. No. 4 Arizona State finished second overall, followed by No. 15 UCLA, Washington and the Ducks.
The Stanford trio of sophomores Sara Bei, Alicia Craig and Arianna Lambie took the top three spots.
Saturday’s finish by Sandoval and Macdonald was easily their best finish at a conference championship meet.
“Coming in fifth was our goal as a team,” head coach Marnie Mason said. “Magdalena and Eri ran great up front. It was a tough course, but a great one with lots of ups and downs and no flat sections. Our runners went out pretty conservatively because of the course’s difficulty — certainly not one that catered to the mentally weak.”
Both the men’s and women’s teams have a week off before heading to the NCAA Western Regional in Portland on Nov. 15.