By Michael Sneag
Daily Bruin Contributor
It’s been a long and winding road, but the journey still
has more to offer.
The Pac-10 Championships, the first test of the postseason, is
over.
The UCLA cross country teams didn’t shock anyone and
didn’t even pull off any major upsets, but they didn’t
need to.
The goal was to run with consistency and put themselves in a
position to do well at the Western Regional meet in two weeks and
qualify for the NCAA Championships.
And they accomplished that.
In the desert heat of Tempe, Ariz., with the temperatures in the
low 90s, the No. 22 women’s team placed fourth behind No. 1
Stanford, No. 11 Arizona and No. 7 Arizona State.
The Bruins did manage to beat out No. 13 Washington, showing
that they are a high caliber team ready to compete on the national
level.
Individually the Bruins were led by junior Elaine Canchola, who
placed 16th with a time of 21:43. The Bruins did place three others
in the top 25 ““ sophomore Valerie Flores (19th, 21:52),
freshman Carolyn Shea (20th, 21:53) and freshman Alejandra
Barrientos (23rd, 22:03).
The individual winner was Stanford’s Lauren Fleshman in a
time of 20:08.
“We got strong performances out of Elaine, Valerie and
Carolyn,” head coach Eric Peterson said. “After being
sick, Alejandra is still rounding into form, and this was
Lena’s first major race.”
“Getting everybody to run a great race on the same day is
definitely a challenge,” he continued, “but we welcome
it and know that it can happen.
“We are just going to continue to improve, get well and
get stronger.”
Sophomore Lena Nilsson (29th, 22:31), freshman Lori Mann (30th,
22:39) and sophomore Jessica Marr (39th, 23:13) rounded out the
rest of the Bruin team.
The Bruins know that if they want to qualify for the NCAAs, they
are going to have to get production from all of their runners on
the same day.
They know they have the talent, but they also know that their
talent needs to be fulfilled in order for it to mean anything. The
western region is the strongest in the nation, but the Bruins are
going to have to use that as motivation.
On the men’s side, the team finished in sixth place but
received some good races from their top runners.
Senior Bryan Green placed 18th with a time of 25:11 and freshman
Ben Aragon was right behind in 19th at 25:12, putting both in
contention to qualify for the NCAAs as individuals.
“We want representation at the nationals,” Peterson
said. “If we can’t get it as a team, then we want our
top runners to be able to make it. That is what we are going
after.”
The other Bruins were senior Justin Patananan (29th, 25:43),
junior Phil Young (39th, 26:16) and freshmen Puneet Mahan (43rd,
26:33), Seth Neumuller (48th, 26:42) and Reggie Oronoz (53rd,
27:49).
“We finished sixth last year with a much more experienced
team,” Peterson said. “We grew up as a program on
Saturday. You can’t put a price on how important to gain
experience in a meet like this. You can talk about it but that
doesn’t mean anything.”
Although the women’s and men’s teams have had very
different expectations, they both know that their seasons are
coming to an end, and that all they can do is learn from their
experiences. As Steve Tyler from Aerosmith says,
“Life’s a journey ““ not a destination.” The
same can be said of this season for the cross country teams.