The ASU cross-country team will kick off the championship portion of the season this weekend when it heads to Long Beach, Calif., for the Pac-10 Championship meet.

The men enter the meet ranked No. 16 in the country and fourth in the Pac-10, while the women enter the race unranked nationally and fifth in the conference.

Oregon State and USC do not field cross-country teams, so ASU will be taking on seven other schools.

On the men’s side, Stanford and Oregon are the top two teams in the country, respectively.

Washington sits three spots ahead of ASU at No. 13 while Washington State is ranked behind ASU at No. 26.

ASU coach Louie Quintana has his eye on a top-three finish.

“At the end of the day, you’ve got five teams really battling to be in that top three, especially when you have the No. 1 and No. 2-ranked teams in the country racing,” Quintana said. “We really want to be in that top three — we feel good that we can compete with Washington, and hopefully by competing with UW, we can bridge that gap to competing with Oregon.”

The men’s team began the season unranked and has climbed higher in the national rankings each week.

Senior Brandon Bethke will lead the team and has a legitimate chance to win the individual race.

Juniors Ben Engelhardt, Jeff Helmer, and Patrick Milloy follow Bethke in the pecking order with freshman Nick Happe rounding out Quintana’s top five.

Also racing with a chance to finish in the top five for the Sun Devils will be freshman Mason McHenry, sophomore Daniel Lovell and juniors Zeke Van Patten and Dylan Hatcher.

Quintana identified Happe and Helmer as the “x-factors” for his team.

“Nick Happe is our fifth guy, and sometimes that fifth guy plays as important role as the No. 1 guy; it sews up your scoring five,” Quintana said. “Jeff Helmer is another guy, because he continues to get better and better, and that’s really big because I think he can run with Engelhardt, and that really gives us a strong top three.

“He’s someone that I’m looking at to have a big race this weekend.”

The women’s team will also be facing top competition, as No. 1 Washington, No. 8 Oregon, No. 12 Stanford and No. 17 UA all rank ahead of ASU.

The team opened the season ranked No. 13 in the country but has since fallen out of the rankings.

Still, Quintana sees a top-three finish as an attainable goal.

“We have a really talented team and they’re training well and they’re motivated to run well this week,” Quintana said. “Our plan is to try and be in the top three as well, which means that we’re going to have to knock off two highly ranked teams.”

Senior All-American Kari Hardt leads the way for the Sun Devils, and it’s the two runners behind her that will ultimately make or break ASU’s race.

“We really have two women that are x-factors for us, and that would be [junior] Anna Sperry and [sophomore] Lindsay Prescott, and that’s because they have the talent, as we saw at the Pre-National meet,” Quintana said. “They’re really big x-factors because when they’re on, the team is really good — we could challenge Oregon for
second.

“If they’re not on, we’re fifth. It’s very important that those two are really running well.”

Joining Hardt, Sperry, and Prescott will be senior Allie Kieffer, junior Cherise McNair, freshman Kate Lydy, junior Kauren Tarver and senior Angela Spadafino.

Reach the reporter at kyle.glaser@asu.edu.