Sometimes sports are about catching the breaks at the right time.
Sometimes the intangible factor of luck plays a large role.
Last Friday, the men’s cross country team suffered a couple of setbacks that put them only 2 points away from a third-place finish at the Pac-10 Championships in Eugene, Ore.
“You don’t put it on any one guy ever,” coach Eric Peterson said. “You can easily break it down to find a couple of points.”
The No. 13 Bruins earned 106 points to finish fifth. No. 1 Oregon captured the team title for the third straight season with 28 points. No. 2 Stanford came in second with 47 points, followed by Cal and Washington at a tie for third with 104 points.
Two of the usual top five runners for UCLA came down with ailments during the 8,000-meter race and had to gut it out to finish.
Senior Laef Barnes, who has consistently been the No. 1 or No. 2 runner for the team, had some abdominal pain which resulted in a back spasm. Barnes placed 46th at 25:04.09. At the three-mile mark, sophomore Kent Morikawa had a severe side stitch which dropped him down to a 32nd-place finish at 24:41.73.
“Our sights were set on closing the gap between Stanford and us,” Peterson said. “We’re looking forward and up at the list, not back. We had two guys have unfortunate situations.”
Redshirt senior Drew Shackleton led the way for the squad with his eighth-place finish in a time of 23:45.89, a season best. The strong performance earned Shackleton all-conference honors and was a great step up from where he was in 2007.
“A top-10-place finish ““ a tremendous accomplishment,” Peterson said. “I measure based on where they were last year. It was a huge improvement for Drew (Shackleton). He did a great job running with that lead pack.”
Senior Mike Haddan was the No. 2 runner for the Bruins in 19th place (24:15.86) followed by junior Marlon Patterson in 22nd (24:25.10). Junior Marco Anzures (29th, 24:35.69) and Morikawa rounded out the top five for the team.
On the women’s side, the young team finished 10th. Two freshmen, two sophomores and a senior were in the top five, led by freshman Shelby Buckley who was the No. 1 runner for UCLA for the first time in her career.
“I think it’s notable Shelby has continued to get better every week throughout the season,” Peterson said.
“She sat down with me earlier in the week and set goals earlier in the week and she met those goals.”
No. 1 Washington swept the top six spots to win the Pac-10 women’s crown with 15 points. No. 2 Oregon came in second with 55 points, and No. 18 Stanford was third with 99 points. UCLA scored 271 points.
Buckley came in 48th place at 21:34.26. Freshman Katja Goldring, who was the No. 1 runner all season up until this race, ran the 6,000m course in 21:50.78 to place 58th. Redshirt sophomore Kelcie Wiemann was the No. 3 runner at 21:56.56 (63rd place) and followed by sophomore Shannon Murakami (68th, 22:08.37) and senior Lauren Jirges (75th, 22:22.63).
For the next two weeks both teams will be preparing for the Western Regionals which will determine berths for the NCAA Championships.
For the women, it will be about using the experience from the big stage of the Pac-10 Championships to help them grow.
“I think we all need more experience” Buckley said. “We’re looking forward to regionals to improve and do well. We want to stick together and run off of each other. Keeps the race easy and simple.”
NYC MARATHON: Senior Kyle Shackleton came in 17th in the New York City Marathon yesterday. Shackleton used up all his eligibility for cross country but will return for his senior year for track in the spring.
This was the first marathon in Shackleton’s career. He was the seventh American to cross the finish line, with a time of 2 hours, 20 minutes, 38 seconds.