Lane Werley is thriving off the pressure of cross country regionals.
UCLA will race against nine of the 12 conference teams this weekend in the NCAA Cross Country West Regionals and they will look to Werley to set the pace.
Redshirt senior David McDonald said that for an individual goal, he would like to finish in the top 20, which would, in turn, help the team. He said that having Werley, a sophomore, by his side would help him accomplish that.
“Lane has been our front-runner this year so it is just assumed that he will continue the trend,” McDonald said.
“We all want to somewhat base off him ““ see where he is. Being closer to him is obviously a better thing because then, our team is going to perform better, which is always the goal no matter what the race is.”
Coach Forest Braden is aware of the team’s thoughts on Werley but knows that his team is capable of matching those same results.
“Lane had the most success, he has been our number one runner all year, and the other athletes feel comfortable training with him. They all train together, they all do the same workouts; so they should feel comfortable and confident that they can race with him too,” Braden said.
“He puts himself in such good positions; he is such a smart racer. They know if they just key off of him and know where Lane is at, they’re going to be alright.”
Werley believes that his motivation comes from the team.
“We key off of each other,” Werley said.
“When you look around and see the guys in the race with you, and you’ve been working out with them, and you know they are going to put everything on the line for you, it gives you that edge.”
One of the teams that will be absent this weekend is Colorado, who is in the Pac-12 but not in the region. Colorado is currently ranked No. 2 in the nation and is on UCLA’s radar to beat.
“There is no one in the West that is as good as Colorado. I like racing the best, and butting heads with the best and seeing how good we are,” Braden said.
“We will still have some competition, the West region is the toughest region in the country.”
Despite UCLA’s drop in the rankings last week from No. 3 to No. 5 in the West, Braden said that the team is capable of much more than the rankings may indicate.
“We feel we are highly underranked. We are a better team than the national rankings suggest,” Braden said.
“There are teams right ahead of us who are ranked in the top 15 and the top 10 in the country that are going to be racing with us (today), and we are as good as they are. If we can put it together on the right day, we can beat anybody.”