By Nic LaPonte
Junior David Kinsella led the men's cross country team to a 14th-place score at this year's NCAA national championships, placing eighth out of 200 runners and finishing the highest out of any runner in UP history.
"I went into it without really high expectations, so it was really positive to finish so well," Kinsella said.
The 2007 NCAA Cross Country Championships were held on Nov. 19 in Terra Haute, Ind., at the LaVern Gibson Cross Country Course. Both the men's and women's teams squared off against competitors from across the country in hopes of placing in the national rankings.
Kinsella led the pack at the halfway point on the 10K course and stayed up with the runners on the forefront from the start to the finish. He finished the race with a time of 29:52.2 - only 11 seconds behind the winner of the race.
Kinsella's performance is even more impressive considering that he missed the entirety of last year's season due to an injury.
"It's been unbelievable - being part of it. It took a year off, but I think I'm better off for it," Kinsella said.
Despite preventing him from running last year, Kinsella actually credits his injury with giving him a different attitude toward competition.
"I think it shocked me out of the stupor I was in, in college. The injury showed me that I'm not guaranteed to be running - I run my ass off because you can get injured again on the next day," Kinsella said.
Oregon won the overall title at the competition with a team score of 85. Portland finished with a total team score of 424.
Kinsella is the sixth Pilot to earn All-American honors under the 18-year tenure of men's cross country Coach Rob Conner. Kinsella's eighth-place finish tops the previous record holder Uli Steidl, who finished in 16th place in 1994.
"It's my goal to be up there in the mix again," Kinsella said, looking ahead to next season. "Top three would be awesome."
On the women's team, sophomore Dana Morgan finished 46th overall at the national competition with a time of 21:09.1 on the 6K course. Morgan initially qualified for nationals by taking ninth place at the West Regional competition.
Morgan's finish at the nationals is the second-best individual finish in Pilot history, behind only Nicole Karr's 1994 All-American finish at 24th place.
The overall winner of the individual title was Sally Kipyego of Texas Tech with a time of 19:30.9.
Morgan was in the top 40 runners up until the halfway point when she fell back a few seconds. A strong finish in the last 200 meters put her back in the top 50.
