The UCLA women’s cross country team is planning on coming
back strong after an upset at last Saturday’s Pac-10
Championships.
The Bruin women, expected to take third, came back with an
overall fourth-place finish. Despite the lower-than-hoped-for
standings, some individual runners had their moment to shine
““ junior Lena Nilsson and sophomore Alejandra Barrientos ran
races that could be listed among their personal bests.
The women will now be focusing their time and energy on
improving their aggressiveness in order to qualify as a team for
the NCAA Championships. They will be competing in the NCAA West
Regional Qualifying meet at Stanford on Nov. 16, hoping to return
to the championships scheduled for Nov. 25 in Terre Haute,
Indiana.
Almost certain to achieve an individual qualifying time for the
NCAA is Nilsson, who took third overall at the Pac-10 meet with a
time of 20:01 in the 6000 meters. The former track runner has been
practicing with the team over the past couple months, strengthening
herself for the long distance runs. Even with the loudest cheering
section at the awards ceremony and head coach Eric Peterson’s
praise, she still felt she could have done a little bit better.
“I probably could have put a bigger effort, pushed myself
harder,” Nilsson said. “Physically, I can run with them
but mentally I’m not ready.”
She hopes that by next year’s season she can “be
ready to fight for the win.”
Nilsson was UCLA’s fourth-best finisher at last
year’s NCAA Championships. In track and field she was the
second athlete in Pac-10 meet history to win both the 800 meters
(2:03.88) and 1500 meters (4:20.81) and was named Conference
Women’s Athlete of the Year.
Sophomore Alejandra Barrientos accomplished both goals she set
for her race. The first was to place within the top 10; she
finished ninth with 21:11. Her next goal was to pass a lead runner
from the Arizona team, which happened in the final stretch.
“What I accomplished, (for the) team and individually, was
good,” she said about her race. However as a team she feels
UCLA underachieved. “We need to work on being tougher at the
end,” Barrientos said.
“We came in with really high hopes,” Peterson said
about Saturday’s meet. Yet with such a young team he feels
the women just got too discouraged towards the end.
“It takes time and experience to run effectively,”
he said. Motivation and enthusiasm are also things he hopes to work
on.
The positive outlook on the meet, according to Peterson, is that
they had to get worse before they got better. Now they can work on
making the changes needed to improve their program.
The next race for the women’s and men’s teams will
be the NCAA West Regional Qualifying meet at Stanford, scheduled
for Nov. 16.