Oregon wanted to finish in the top 20 in the nation at the end of the cross country season.
It came close; the Ducks finished at No. 21.
The Ducks entered the 2003 NCAA Championships in Waterloo, Iowa, hoping to have peak performances as a group — something they hadn’t done all year.
The race was a reflection of the way the season had gone for the Ducks. There was a terrific finish by Oregon’s three All-Americans. But the rest of the team failed to provide an extra push that could catapult the team into the top 20 finish the Ducks knew they were capable of producing.
Oregon was led by Eric Logsdon, as the junior finished the race 29th overall, finishing the 10,000-meter race in 30 minutes, 13 seconds. Ryan Andrus finished 51st overall in 30:25, followed by Brett Holts, who finished in 30:39, good for 70th overall.
Both Logsdon and Andrus earned All-America honors again this year.
“Through the first mile I was around 75th or 80th, and was still stuck back at 60th after the halfway point,” Logsdon said. “I didn’t get into the top 50 until between the seventh and eighth kilometers, and from there I passed a ton of people.”
But it was Oregon’s final two runners that finished 198th and 205th, respectively, that kept Oregon from moving a few spots up in the finish.
Shane Ahlers finished with a time of 31:46, while Noel Paulson finished 31:50.
“This race has been symbolic of our team all year,” head coach Martin Smith said. “We’ve had some strong runners up front, but then have had problems with our remaining scorers. We were less than 50 points out of 13th place, so we could have taken a noticeable jump with another solid body in the top 150.”
However, it was both the Stanford men and women who stole the show again for the second time in as many years.
The top-ranked Stanford men ran away with the title with four of its runners finishing in the top six.
The Stanford women, ranked No. 2 entering the meet, finished with four of their runners in the top 23. Stanford beat out defending champion BYU by eight points for first.
Meanwhile, the Oregon women’s lone representative was Magdalena Sandoval, who finished the race in 21:18, which was good for 105th overall.
But that doesn’t tell the whole story.
The senior, who finished in the top 10 of every race she has competed in this season, fell in the first 300 meters of the race. Sandoval found herself dead last among the 255 runners in the field and 20 meters behind the nearest runner.
“I went down hard and hit my head pretty hard, so it took me a few seconds to figure out how I felt,” Sandoval said. “I came into the season hoping to be an All-America, and I felt before the race that I was still on course. Nobody ever expects something like this to happen, so it’s a shock.”
Her most recent finish in a 6,000-meter race was in the NCAA Western Regional where she finished with a time of 20:48. Sandoval probably would have beat that time if she hadn’t fell, and can now only wonder what could have been.
“Magdalena did the best she could in an awful situation,” head coach Marnie Mason said. “She showed some amazing resolve to react like she did in a really hard fall, and I told her she has nothing to be ashamed of. She represented the team and herself like a soldier.”
Despite the fall, Sandoval quickly outpaced the 150 people ahead of her, including former teammate, Colorado State’s Nicole Feest, who transferred during the off season.
Feest finished 106th.