By Dylan Hernandez
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
With only two teams from both the men’s and women’s
contests automatically advancing to the NCAA Championships out of
Saturday’s West Regional in Fresno, the UCLA cross country
squads are well aware that they will likely run their last races of
the season this weekend.
Heading into the Pac-10 Championships two weeks ago, the Bruin
men’s and women’s teams appeared to be on the bubble
for an at-large berth to the national finals. Although neither
squad ran poorly, the competition proved to be too stiff and both
teams finished sixth, all but ending their hopes of advancing.
Amidst the disappointment, however, junior Bryan Green of the
men’s squad emerged as a legitimate star in the conference,
placing eighth overall. His run, in which he covered 8 kilometers
in 23 minutes and 57.57 seconds, put him in a good position to move
on as an individual.
For Green to do that, he will have to be among the top four
runners on teams that are not advancing and in the top 25
overall.
Still, Green said he would stick with UCLA’s race plan of
having the team stay together through the first three miles.
“I have no problem with that,” he said. “I
think our team still has a good shot.”
Bruin head coach Eric Peterson thinks the extra 2,000 meters
that will be run in Fresno ““ at Regionals and NCAA meets, the
races are 10 kilometers ““ will help Green.
“At 8K (the distance the Bruins raced all season), three
miles is too long to wait,” Peterson said. “But at
10,000 meters, it’s just about right. That’s why
we’ve been using three miles as our magic point all
year.”
In the race, Green and the Bruins will have to face the same
national powers they faced at the Pac-10s ““ No. 2 Stanford,
No. 10 Oregon, No. 12 Arizona and NCAA bubble team Arizona State
““ in addition to West Coast Conference winner Portland.
The women, meanwhile, will face a field that may be even
tougher.
Stanford (No. 2), Arizona State (No. 4), Arizona (No. 6) and
Washington (No. 8) are all ranked in the nation’s top 10. UC
Irvine, Washington State and Oregon, which have all beat UCLA
earlier this season, will also be in the race.
“After Pac-10s, we were emotionally deflated,”
senior team captain Tina Bowen said. “We didn’t
accomplish what we had to.”
Nonetheless, Bowen said, the team was trying to get itself up
for the upcoming race. Aware that the pre-race favorites have
distanced themselves from the rest of the contestants, she added,
“If we finish fifth, we’ll feel like we won the
meet.”
When the team’s No. 1 runner was asked if she had thought
of the possibility of advancing as an individual, Bowen admitted
she had. She was sick at the Pac-10s and wasn’t even the
team’s top finisher there, but has been feeling strong
since.
She maintained, though, that her focus remained on her team.
“The team is No. 1,” Bowen said. “You
don’t want to go to nationals as an individual. If I qualify,
I qualify.”