Once again, the UCLA women’s cross country team was led by its newest additions in the freshmen and sophomore classes, showing more signs of improvement during this past weekend’s meet.
The Bruins came home from the Stanford Invitational with a fifth-place finish, earning 202 points. No. 4 Stanford took the team title with 43 points, followed by UC Davis, Azusa Pacific and Cal.
“I’m really pleased with this performance,” coach Eric Peterson said. “We came up here with not a real good idea of where we stood within the region. Ten teams of 33 teams beat us at the West Regional last year. Three of those teams beat us this year. That’s clearly a positive statement for this team.”
For the third consecutive meet, freshman Katja Goldring was the first UCLA runner to cross the finish line. Goldring finished 22nd in the 6K course in a time of 22:02. In her young career, she has been the top runner in all events in the 2008 season.
To round out the scoring group of five athletes for UCLA, sophomore Shannon Murakami was second for the Bruins in 32nd place, finishing in 22:21. Senior Lauren Jirges ran 22:35 as the No. 3 runner (43rd overall). Freshman Shelby Buckley, in her first collegiate race, placed 53rd at 22:44. Sophomore Kelcie Wiemann was 57th at 22:49.
“The focus of our season is putting together the best team we can,” Peterson said. “There were 47 seconds between our first and fifth runners. That was the key to our strong performance.”
This is an entirely different UCLA team from last year. The results have been better and the morale has been higher.
For a team that finished last in the Pac-10 last year, a fifth place finish in an event that had the strongest field of competition so far this season is very encouraging.
Freshman Sadee Martinez returned from the Big Wave Invitational in Hawaii last week feeling sick and was only able to do light jogging in practice during the week leading up to Stanford. However, she still ran and helped inspire the team.
“Sadee showed a lot of toughness and character,” Peterson said. “That was commitment to team, and she gave a great effort and ran tough. The other kids stepped up and absorbed that. Last year that would have had a deflating impact on the team. That was a strong point for us today.”
The women’s team is running with a new confidence and is making it known to the rest of the Western Region that they will be in the mix for the team title. The Stanford Invitational was another step in the right direction.
“I think we’re all pretty happy,” Goldring said. “We have improved on paper. We showed the other big teams we’re right there with them.”
On the men’s side, a group of four young runners competed to see who would be added to the top Bruin squad for races during the regular season.
Freshman David McDonald was the No. 1 runner with a 71st place finish of 26:09 on the 8K course. Redshirt freshman Cory Primm turned in a time of 26:37 (102nd), sophomore Scott Crawford ran 27:34 (170th) and junior Ryan Gordon was 211th at 28:42.
“We brought a largely young group of men determining who will take last spot in competition,” Peterson said. “David earned that today.”
Next weekend the men will head to Oregon for the Bill Dellinger Invitational.