Friday, November 14, 1997
Peak performance crucial at Western Regional qualifier
W. CROSS COUNTRY:
Top two teams get automatic bid to national tourneyBy Jared
Hummel
Daily Bruin Contributor
The pressure is on. The intensity level has reached a boiling
point. The UCLA women’s cross country season comes down to this
Saturday’s meet. It is the NCAA Western Regional Qualifying Meet.
The game plan is simple: run the best race of your life, or the
season ends.
UCLA enters the race ranked 18th in the nation after a two week
resting period in preparation.
In order for the Bruins to secure an automatic bid to the
national championships, they must finish, as a team, in the top two
in the region.
This will not be a simple task.
The Western Region is packed with strong teams; leading the list
is the defending national champions, the Stanford Cardinal, a cross
country powerhouse that is heavily favored to win the meet and go
on to repeat as national champions.
Also standing in UCLA’s path for the coveted top-two placement
is No. 6 Oregon and No. 9 Washington. The Bruins finished behind
Stanford, Oregon and Washington at the Pac-10 Championship Meet on
Nov. 1.
"I think that we are confident," UCLA head coach Eric Peterson
said. "The only thing we are lacking is experience  that’s
the only thing. We’re healthy  I know that they’re in great
shape. I know they’re very enthusiastic, and I know they’re level
of desire to be successful as a team is very high right now."
Individually, Arizona’s Amy Skieresz hopes to win her third
straight West Regional title. Skieresz is the defending national
champion who has won 13 straight meets. In last year’s West
Regional at the Stanford golf course, Skieresz set the course
record with a time of 16 minutes, 36 seconds.
In addition to the automatic national championship berths given
out to the top two teams, three such berths will be given out to
the top individuals.
UCLA senior Katherina Kechris is expected to compete for this
prize. Kechris has established herself as the team’s top runner
this season after the loss of sophomore Kim Mortensen.
"If our team does not qualify, Katherina still has an excellent
chance of qualifying as an individual," Peterson said. "She ran
very well at the Pac-10 meet and has had good workouts leading up
to the regionals."
Despite the seemingly insurmountable odds stacked up against his
team’s qualifying for the NCAA Championships, Peterson remains, as
he has all season, confident in the strength of his athletes.
"All the ingredients for having a successful performance are
there," Peterson said. "We just need to be very, very confident in
our ability to go and run the way we are trained to."
Everything that can be practiced has already been practiced and
everything that can be said has already been said. At this point,
the UCLA women’s cross country team must simply perform on
Saturday; the rest will work itself out.