Cross country is heading to the Pacific Northwest for a race with fellow Pac-12 powers at the Pac-12 Championships in Washington Friday.
On the men’s side, head coach Louie Quintana said one of the objectives this Friday is to place near nationally-ranked UCLA, Washington and Cal.
“For our men, that’s our main objective,” Quintana said. “Can we beat one of those teams? Can we get close to one of those teams to give us a shot at the regional meet to feel like ‘OK, we can make it to the national championship?’”
Last year at the Pac-12 meet, Ryan Herson was the first Sun Devil to cross the finish line in 20th place overall with a time of 24:15.
“Anytime you get an opportunity to race against some of the top teams in the nation, it’s pretty exciting,” Herson said. “We’re just tuning up, continuing the work we’ve done over the year and mentally preparing for a good race on Friday.”
As a redshirt senior, this will be Herson’s final Pac-12 Championships meet.
“Being the last one … you want to go out on a good note,” Herson said. “I just want to know that I went out on the course and gave it all I got. Going out there and doing the best I can for the team is the goal for this week.”
On the girls’ side, Quintana said the Sun Devils have seen some great races individually this season. He mentioned Samantha Ortega, Adriana Olivas, Cristina Juan Torres, Jenna Maack and Chelsey Totten, specifically.
“What we want to do is, (see if we) can put those five together and run well at the same time,” Quintana said. “If we do that, there’s no telling how good this team can be. I believe, personally, that this team is a national-qualifying type of team, but we’re going to have to go out there and show it at the conference meet and then at the regional meet in two weeks.”
For Ortega, the trip to the Pac-12 meet will be the first of her collegiate career.
“I’m really excited for it,” Ortega said. “It’s definitely one of the bigger races of the season for us to qualify to move on to nationals later, but it’s really exciting to go out there and to see what I’m going to be able to do, what our team can do against all the other teams in our conference.”
Ortega said the one thing she is trying to get better at for Friday’s meet is being toward the front of the pack and, in the process, bringing fellow Sun Devils closer as well.
“I really want that gap between us to be as small as possible for this race so our team scores better and we place better as a whole,” Ortega said. “I feel like we can do that by keeping each other in sight and in check and making sure we know where each other is in the race and really just motivating each other to get up there.”
At the Pac-12 meet in 2014, ASU finished in sixth place in both the men’s and women’s races.
The Pac-12 Championships will be held at the Colfax Golf Club in Colfax, Washington. The men’s race is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m., while the women’s race is slated to start at 11:30 a.m.
Related Links:
ASU cross country set to host home meet Friday
Ortega, Albertson lead the way for ASU cross country at Wisconsin Adidas Invitational
Reach the reporter at michael.baron@asu.edu or follow @Michael_Baron96 on Twitter.
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