By Nicholas Slepnikoff
Although soccer continues to make headlines, the University of Portland has once again gained an invaluable athletic crop of new freshmen recruits.
However, instead of being in the realm of basketball or soccer, these new cross country recruits have the potential to revolutionize the sport at University of Portland.
The Pilot Men's Cross Country squad, who took seventh in the national's, third in the regional's behind Stanford and Oregon and tied a record for the highest place a Portland men's cross country team has reached, showed plenty of promise last season.
These new recruits open only more possibilities.
Running at Pier Park this past Friday, the Pilot team fielded two of the top incoming recruits in the country, freshmen Trevor Dunbar and Joash Osoro.
Taking first and second, respectively, at the West Coast Preview Meet, Head Coach Rob Conner, who chose to run JV and freshmen runners in this early meet, felt that these new recruits were "off to a nice start."
"I expect them to be varsity runners this year," Conner said.
Dunbar placed second at the high school level Footlocker Nationals and Osoro placed third at the high school level Nike Nationals, adding a new level of depth to the Pilot squad.
Additionally, the University fielded Norwegian Lars Erik Malde, who finished 16th at the European Under-20 Cross Country Championships.
The team has managed to secure tons of invaluable running skill and diversity with these new recruits.
Although the freshmen have the promise to become major players in the squad, Conner said it was still too early to tell how they could contribute.
"We need to get to the end of the season healthy and ready to go," Connor said. "We have the potential to be better than we were last year."
In addition to these two freshmen recruits, the men's team is also returning two of the school's best runners, sophomore Alfred Kipchumba and pre-dental graduate Tommy Betterbed, who red- shirted in 2005.
After struggling last season with stress fractures and a rough close to the season, Betterbed returns this year hoping to go to nationals and, Conner said, come away with an All-American title. The All-American race which usually fields 250 runners, takes the top 40 finishers for the All American title.
"I'm looking forward to going back to nationals, improving on last year ... maybe stay healthy for a change," Betterbed said.
The women's cross country squad also had a great showing at the meet on Friday. Head Coach of the women's squad, Ian Solof, said the team had quite a bit of potential.
"The women's team is looking young ... a little light on experience, but we have quite a bit of talent and the potential to have a good season, " Solof said.
Focusing on running early races, Solof thinks that it is too early to tell how the women's cross country squad will do.
"Some of them haven't run for the team yet, some of them have run for one season," Solof said.
However, by running the early meets and "gaining more experience for the younger people," Solof thinks that the team, which already has talent and depth, could have a great season this year.
Although the women's squad did not field a full varsity squad, senior Lyndy Davis, sophomore Elizabeth Keaveny and freshman Molly Mitchell took first, third and fourth place in the Friday meet.
"We ran our top freshman," Solof said. "I thought she did a great job for her first race and is going to be a varsity contributor."
With these fresh recruits and older returnees, Solof and Conner are both hopeful for a strong season.
With another big meet at University of Oregon on Oct. 2, the teams will be hard at work, practicing and preparing for the late fall event.
