For the first time since 1985, the UCLA men’s cross
country team will be heading to the NCAA Championships.
On Saturday, the Bruins competed at the West Region
Championships in Portland, Ore., finishing in sixth place as a
team. A day later, the team found out that it had received an
at-large bid to the NCAA meet, which takes place in just one
week.
In the beginning of the season, the team’s main goal was
to stay competitive in such a loaded conference and region.
Few thought that such a young team would be able to come
together so soon and achieve the level of success the Bruins have
reached.
“When you look at this roster, you say this is a building
year; we are going to give these kids experience this season and
2007 is going to be our year,” coach Eric Peterson said.
“But instead, 2006 is our year.”
The Bruins capped off an impressive regular season Saturday by
defeating nationally ranked teams in No. 19 Cal Poly and No. 22 UC
Santa Barbara. Coupled with earlier wins over automatic qualifiers
No. 21 Texas and American, UCLA’s performance on Saturday
made it impossible for the NCAA Committee to deny the Bruins an
at-large bid.
“Coming into the meet, we felt as if sixth place would
make it very hard for the NCAA to deny us,” Peterson said.
“We certainly felt as though we had beaten enough quality
teams during the season to warrant a lot of
consideration.”
The West Region proved to be the nation’s toughest,
sending an unprecedented nine teams to the NCAA Championships. A
total of 31 teams are slated to compete.
As has been the case all season, the Bruins were paced Saturday
by junior Kyle Shackleton, who came in 16th place on the
10,000-meter course (30:37). While the team has lacked the standout
star runner that past UCLA teams have had (such as All-American
Austin Ramos, who sat out this season), Shackleton has the
advantage of knowing that he has led the Bruins to their first NCAA
appearance in 21 years.
“When we made the decision to redshirt Ramos, I
don’t know how many teams would feel that we were going to
develop an even stronger team and be in a position to
qualify,” Peterson said. “Kyle hasn’t placed as
highly as some of our top runners in the past, but his leadership
was one of the key factors in the development of this
team.”
Behind Shackleton, the Bruin lineup was rounded out by sophomore
Laef Barnes, (26th, 31:07), junior Mike Haddan (33rd, 31:14),
redshirt sophomore Drew Shackleton (41st, 31:33) and freshman
Marlon Patterson (52nd, 31:49).
The Bruins will take a day or two to bask in their
accomplishment, though they still have one meet left to prove that
they are indeed capable of running on the national stage.
“We are ecstatic,” Peterson said. “Now we will
evaluate where we stand with each team competing, but we feel very
confident coming out of the West Region.”