Coach Eric Peterson loved the atmosphere in Oregon as a runner,
and this weekend he will finally be able to share that with his
team.
Both the UCLA men’s and women’s cross country teams
will be competing at the first annual Bill Dellinger Invitational
tonight in picturesque Eugene, Ore. Peterson, who was an
All-American athlete at the University of Oregon, sees this race
not only as a chance for his squads to face off against quality
opponents, but also as somewhat of a homecoming.
“It is an extreme honor to bring my teams to the Bill
Dellinger Invitational,” Peterson said. “Bill Dellinger
was my coach while I was there, and it will be great for us to
compete in the inaugural race in his honor.”
The race will be held on the historic “Pre’s
Trail,” named after great American runner Steve Prefontaine,
and is the first collegiate race held on the trail since 1998.
Pleasantries asides, the Bruins will be facing off against some
of the top teams in the nation. On the women’s side, the race
will feature seven of the country’s top 30 squads. Coming off
of a respectable showing last weekend in Minnesota at the Roy Griak
Invitational, the Bruins would still like to close the gap between
the core group of runners and will use today’s race to try
and accomplish that.
“I think this will be a good chance to work on our team
running,” senior Ashley Caldwell said. “We did fairly
well early on last weekend, but we need to work on maintaining that
throughout the race.”
The women will be without the services of junior Claire
Rethmeier, one of the team’s top five runners, who will miss
the race because of a slight foot injury.
The men will face an equally talented field ““ they will
line up against eight highly ranked opponents. The team will be
looking to improve upon its subpar showing a week earlier, when it
finished in 15th place in Minnesota.
“If we want to improve upon what we did last week, we have
to learn to run more as a unit,” Peterson said. “It
doesn’t matter the order, we need to focus on running as a
group.”