This weekend the UCLA cross country program will travel to Stanford for the 35th Annual Stanford Invitational in hopes of continuing its success from last week.
Both the men and women came away with wins in Hawaii at the Big Wave Invitational last week, but this week’s meet will showcase a higher level of competition and will be the first scoring meet of the season.
On the men’s side, there will be a very different team than the one that ran in Hawaii. No one who ran in the Big Wave Classic will run on this week’s version of the team in Stanford. Instead, a younger group of runners will go up against four top-25 teams, including No. 11 Stanford, this weekend.
“What we are really doing is looking at this group of athletes to see, without having the other guys, if these other guys will be able to break into the top seven, eight, nine,” coach Eric Peterson said. “They have trained well and earned that opportunity, and this is going to be their chance.”
Among those traveling to Stanford will be Northern California freshman Mohamed Abdalla, who according to Peterson, is “excited to open his season up there.” Another freshman making the trip will be David McDonald, who took 40th place in the UC Irvine Invitational meet three weeks ago.
Redshirt freshman Cory Primm and redshirt sophomore Scott Crawford will also be competing this weekend.
While this meet does mark the start of the scoring season, wins and losses get recalculated at the end of the season before nationals. This means that only meets where three of the five top competitors for each team competed will be counted and added to their score.
For the UCLA women, the heavily recruited freshman Shelby Buckley will be joining the team.
“(We’re) really excited to get her back in the mix,” Peterson said. “She will make our team that much better.”
It will be a challenging meet for the Bruins, especially because No. 4 Stanford will be hosting and competing on its own home turf.
After winning last week in Hawaii, freshman Katja Goldring is expected to lead the Bruins.
The Stanford Invitational is an important one for Bruin runners because it is the same course that hosts the NCAA West Region Championships in November. It will be crucial for the athletes to become accustomed to the trail, because the Regionals meet determines who qualifies for the NCAA Championships.