Wednesday, January 6, 1999
Top five finish would fulfill promise
Goal of reaching NCAA Championships may be met if UCLA can run
well at Fresno meet
By Donald Morrison
Daily Bruin Contributor
The UCLA women’s cross country team will have only one shot to
accomplish its most important goal of the season. That chance comes
Saturday as the Bruins compete in the Western Regional Cross
Country Qualifying Meet at Woodward Park in Fresno, Calif.
The goal is to qualify for the NCAA Championships in a
week-and-a-half in Lawrence, Kan. UCLA set that goal at the
beginning of the season and will need to finish in the top five at
the meet to have any realistic shot at advancing.
This year, the NCAA expanded the field of teams invited to the
NCAA Championships to 31 teams. The top two teams at the nine
regional meets get automatic berths while the NCAA will select 13
at-large teams.
UCLA head coach Eric Peterson said the team is ready to rebound
from its disastrous eighth-place finish at the Pac-10 meet two
weeks ago and is running strong.
"I know that when we have taken the time, as we have in the last
week-and-a-half to put things into perspective, we’re going to run
better than we did at the Pac-10 meet," Peterson said. "The
pressure is on a bit. It’s a one-time shot to run well enough to
get ourselves into the national championships."
The Bruins will run in arguably the toughest regional meet in
the nation. UCLA will go up against five teams ranked in the Top 20
nationally. No. 2 Stanford is the favorite to win the meet, while
No. 9 Washington and No. 11 Arizona expect to battle for second
place. No. 14 Arizona State and No. 16 Oregon figure to challenge
UCLA for the fourth spot at the meet.
Christina Bowen (who finished as UCLA’s No. 1 runner at the
Pac-10 meet), Kara Barnard and Melinda George all need to finish
between 18 minutes and 18:15 for UCLA to finish high, Peterson
says. He is confident that they can all do that.
"I’d like the team to close the gap between our No. 1 runner and
our No.5 runner," Peterson said. "If we can do that we’ll have a
solid performance."
The Bruins hope that they will have one more race to run after
this one – and with solid performances from all of the athletes,
they could get it.
"The goal of being able to run and compete in the NCAA
Championships is by far the most important thing we feel we can do
for ourselves to gain that kind of maturity and competitive
opportunities that this team needs," Peterson said.
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