|
Stanford Sweeps Pac-10 Cross Country Championships
At the 2002 Pacific-10 Cross Country Championships, UCLA junior Lena Nilsson's third-place individual finish in the 6000m women's race led the Bruins to a fourth-place team finish. Stanford for the second year in a row swept both women and men's team and individual titles. The UCLA men finished eighth in the team standings. The races were held at Pasadena's Brookside Country Club and UCLA was the host school. Pac-10 Women No. 2 Stanford won the women's team title for the seventh consecutive year, with 23 points, followed by second-place No. 17 Arizona State (59), third-place No. 25 Washington (79) and fourth-place No. 19 UCLA (86) (the top four of nine teams). Cardinal sophomore Sara Bei (Santa Rosa/Montgomery HS) won the women's 6000m race in a time of 19:48. Finishing second was last year's conference champion, senior Lauren Fleshman (Canyon Country/Canyon HS), in a time of 19:50. Stanford captured four of the top five individual places. "I am so thankful for our team," Bei said. "It was really exciting to run with my teammates Lauren (Fleshman) and Alicia (Craig, fourth-place) and having Lena (Nilsson) up there really pushed us. We had a great team presence today and I'm so thankful that we were able to win." UCLA Women Nilsson (Vallentuna, Sweden) the defending NCAA Outdoor 1500m champion, finished third in a school-record time of 20:01. Also finishing in the Top 10 was sophomore Alejandra Barrientos (Felton/San Lorenzo Valley HS), placing ninth in a time of 21:11. In all, the Bruin women had six runners in the Top 30. "I'm extremely pleased with both Lena and Alejandra's performance today," said UCLA head coach Eric Peterson. "Because we are a young cross country team, we work hard in training on how to manage the entire distance of the race. Today, Lena and
Alejandra executed our strategy to near perfection. I feel good that we matched up well against Arizona State and Washington, but in the last 1500m, Washington's runners were more aggressive at the finish (and placed third ahead of fourth-place UCLA)."
Pac-10 Men No. 1 Stanford won the team title, for the third straight year and six of the last seven, with 19 points, followed by second-place No. 5 Oregon (51), third-place No. 25 Arizona State (85) and fourth-place Washington (114) (rounding out the top four of eight teams). For the second year in a row, Cardinal senior Grant Robison (San Angelo, TX/McMinnville HS) won the men's 8000m race, in a time of 23:27 (his winning time in 2001 was 24:04.0). Stanford's men's runners finished in seven of the top nine positions. "I really liked running this course," said Robison. "We were successful today because we ran as a team." Bruin Men UCLA had two runners in the top 31 - sophomores, Erik Emilsson (Bjarred, Sweden) in 24th-place (24:47) and Ben Aragon (Santee/West Hills HS) in 31st (25:05). Women/Men Open Race Before the two Pac-10 races, there was an open women (6000m) and men's (8000m) race. The overall winner of the women's race was Carmen Martinez, Track West, 20:43 and the collegiate winner was UCLA junior Tiffany Burgess (Van Nuys/Birmingham HS), 22:00. The overall winner of the men's race was Brett Gotcher, Los Feliz Flyers, 24:25 and the collegiate winner was Evan Fox (La Mesa/West Hills HS), Stanford, 24:54. Looking Ahead As the UCLA women continue in their quest to qualify as a team to the upcoming 2002 NCAA Championships (Nov. 25 at Terre Haute, IN) for fourth time in the last five years, both Bruin squads will run in the NCAA West Region Qualifying meet, Nov. 16 at Stanford.
2002 Pac-10 Cross Country Championships
Pac-10 Women Team Standings
Women Individually (6000m/Top 10 of 77 runners)
UCLA Women
Pac-10 Men Team Standings
Men Individually (8000m/Top 10 of 70 runners)
UCLA Men
Open 6000m Women
Open 8000m Men
|
