Monday, October 13, 1997
Runners still ranked strong even though not best day
UCLA finishes seventh in nation despite rain, exhaustion
By Donald Morrison
Daily Bruin Contributor
The UCLA men’s cross-country team did not run their best race of
the season but still managed to finish seventh at the NCAA Preview
Meet Saturday morning in Greenville, SC. The 22nd-ranked Bruins
arrived at Furman University, the site of the race, late on Friday
and only had a chance to walk over the course for a half-mile
before it started raining.
"We were pleased that we were seventh at a national meet when it
wasn’t our best day," head coach Bob Larsen. "We ran pretty well.
We arrived late on Friday and the course was dark and rainy. I
think we were capable of being close to Notre Dame. If we were more
rested we probably could’ve finished in the top five."
The Bruins finished seventh with 275 points after two weeks of
intense practices and placed ahead of three teams ranked nationally
in the top 20. UCLA finished ahead of ninth-place finisher, No. 11
Iona College, and finished higher than No. 20 Iowa State, which
came in tenth. The other ranked team that UCLA beat was No. 15 Wake
Forest. The Demon Deacons placed 14th with 335 points.
No. 1 Stanford won the race easily as they finished with only 43
points. The five scorers for the Cardinal all crossed the finish
line in the top 13. Colorado finished in a distant second with 72
points, and Wisconsin finished third with 143 points. Rounding out
the top five were Notre Dame and Miami of Ohio, which finished
fourth and fifth, respectively.
Colorado’s Adam Goucher won the 8,000-meter race with a time of
24:00. UCLA’s Mebrahtom Keflezighi crossed the line in second with
a time of 24:17. Keflezighi has yet to defeat Goucher in a
cross-country meet in his career, but Larsen is happy with
Keflezighi’s performance.
"There was a group of eight in the front that ran together all
the way until the last mile when Goucher surged ahead," Larsen
said. "(Keflezighi) followed him and stayed close for a half-mile
but then he backed off once he realized that he couldn’t hang on.
He ran a smart race. He didn’t burn all his energy and let the rest
of the pack catch him."
Larsen also noted that Keflezighi is starting to look stronger
now that he is recovering from tendonitis in his knee and feels
optimistic about Keflezighi’s performances in future races.
Devin Elizondo performed well at the meet, finishing 29th with a
time of 25:51. Mark Hauser was the third Bruin to come in when he
crossed the line in 61st with a time of 25:49. Hauser went out hard
at the start of the race and fell back a bit but still finished
strong.
Will Bernaldo, surprisingly, finished fourth for UCLA placing
91st with a time of 26:10. Bernaldo had not previously finished in
the top 5 for UCLA this year until Saturday morning.
Dan Brecht was the final scorer for the Bruins. Brecht crossed
the tape in 97th place with a time of 26:18. Matt Olin finished in
101st place for UCLA and Matt Pitts came in 106th out of over 160
athletes running. He was the final Bruin to cross the line.
"We wanted all our scorers in the top 100," Larsen said. "We ran
well for not recovering fully from training."