Last week, the Bruins found out that they would be heading to
the NCAA Championships for the first time since 1985. Today, they
are out to prove they belong there.
The UCLA men’s cross country team will compete in Terre
Haute, Ind., today at the NCAA Cross Country Championships.
Although this is the first time UCLA has seen a men’s squad
reach this meet in 21 years, the Bruins are not satisfied with
simply making it to this level.
“We want to put UCLA men’s cross country on the
map,” coach Eric Peterson said. “We are now going to be
moving forward with the knowledge that our system is strong and our
guys are competitive and we are capable of running at a level that
shows that we are worthy of running at this
championship.”
Toeing the line with the other top 31 teams in the nation,
Peterson’s squad will be facing its toughest challenge in its
already surprising season. With no seniors in its top five and its
best runner, Austin Ramos, sitting out the season, this
team’s goal was just to grow and gear up for a run next year,
but the precocious Bruins have come out of nowhere to establish
themselves as a force in the cross country world.
This young UCLA squad has no athletes who have competed on this
level, though Peterson feels his team’s youth might just be a
positive in today’s race, as it has all season.
“There are questions of the youth of this team and the
inexperience of this team,” Peterson said. “But
sometimes those unknowns will play to a team’s favor. … We
have been consistent all year long and there is no reason to think
that (today) will be different.”
With no seniors on this team, no one expected them to make this
sort of run. However, the team says this meet is just the beginning
of what it says will become a UCLA cross country powerhouse, one
day capable of rivaling traditional Pac-10 powers Stanford and
Oregon.
“We feel that this is just the first step,” junior
Kyle Shackleton said. “It is not enough to celebrate getting
to the championships. We hope that year after year we will be
making it back, and if we are the first team to do something good
at this meet it will feel really special.”
But before the Bruins can think about making permanent
reservations in Indiana for this time of year, they must first
perform today and show the rest of the cross country community that
they have in fact arrived on the national scene.
“We know we earned our way in here,” Shackleton
said. “It is something to celebrate, but qualifying gives you
an opportunity to prove yourself, and we hope to do
that.”