Men's and women's XC raced in Springfield, Ore. for berth to NCAA Championships
By Kim Spir
UP cross county fans were out in force at the Springfield Country Club Saturday (some making the trip on Amtrak the night before) to watch the no. 8-ranked Pilots (84 points) finish second to no.1 Stanford (27 points) at the NCAA West Regional Meet.
The Grape Crush finished 25 points ahead of no. 3-ranked University of Oregon, who finished third on the flat, muddy course.
The top two teams at Regionals get an automatic berth to the NCAA Championships. Oregon got an at-large berth.
Senior Tommy Betterbed led the Pilots with a fifth place finish overall at the 10K distance.
"It came out of nowhere, totally unexpected based on how the season is going," he said. "All of a sudden near the end I realized I was in with the top five or six guys. I felt great, relaxed. This is the way I wanted to feel before nationals."
Freshmen Josh Osoro and Trevor Dunbar were 8th and 12th respectively.
Sophomore Alfred Kipchumba finished 22nd and freshman redshirt Shane Geiger ran impressively for 40th place as Portland's fifth scorer.
Freshman Lars Malde was just behind in 42nd. Redshirt freshman Jared Bassett finished 76th.
"The guys did a nice job of executing our race plan and finishing hard over the last half of the race," said Coach Rob Conner. "The fact that we have five freshmen and a sophomore going made it even more impressive."
"I've been training really hard for the past month and a half and it paid off today," Betterbed said after the race. "I ran under no pressure. Our goal as a team was to be in the top three. We were strong up in front. We have strong runners and we are ready for the nationals. We're not revealing our cards yet."
The no. 1-ranked Washington women won with 25 points.
Led by winner Canadian Kendra Schaaf, UW placed five runners in the top 10. no. 5-ranked University of Oregon was second with 66 points, with freshman phenom Jordan Hasay finishing second overall as the Duck's top finisher.
The Pilot women placed 16th out of 25 teams, led by Lyndy Davis, who finished 48th. Bethany McInturff was 61st and Theresa Hailey was 99th.
The Portland women raced strongly near the leaders for the first portion of the race, but were unable to match the dominating strategy set by the Huskies over the 6K course.
The UP Athletic Department will host a watch party for the men's cross country team beginning at 8:45 a.m. on Monday, November 23, in the Chiles Center Hall of Fame Room when the Pilot men will be running at the NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Indiana.
The meet starts at 9 a.m. Pacific Time and will be shown live on Versus. The event is free and open to the public.
Kim Spir works for
the School of Engineering
