The ASU women's cross country team continued to excel this weekend at the NCAA West Region Championships while the men will have to wait to see if they will make the NCAA Championships.
The women's team finished second at the meet hosted by Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif., and automatically gained entry into the 2002 NCAA Championships on Nov. 25. The team, once again, was led by a trio of freshmen and accumulated 70 team points to finish behind the second-ranked Stanford women's team.
"It was a total team effort for the women today. We had several people out with the flu or injuries, and we still stood up to the adversity and finished strong," ASU coach Walt Drenth said. "We raced hard and acted like we wanted to be a part of the national tournament in two weeks."
The top finisher on the women's side was freshman Jessica Scalzo who finished eighth with a time of 21:45. She also led the women's team at the Pac-10 Championships on Nov. 2. Behind her were freshmen Amy Hastings in 10th (21:48) and Anna Masinelli in 13th (21:53). Rounding out the top five Sun Devils were sophomore Desiree Davila in the 18th spot at 22:05 and senior Cody Sohn in 23rd (22:14).
For the men's team, a combined 125 points placed them in the fifth spot with No. 1-ranked Stanford taking home first. The fifth-place finish means the men will have to wait and find out if they are selected to be one of the 13 at-large participants.
"It says a lot for our program when we came out here today [Saturday], had a bad race and were still able to finish in the top five of a pretty tough region," Drenth said. "We didn't have a good team effort, though. We are capable of more than what we displayed today."
The top Sun Devil on the men's side was sophomore J.J. Duke with an 11th-place finish and a time of 30:49. Following him were seniors Fasil Bizuneh in 13th (30:50) and Ronnie Buchanan coming in 30th (31:45). The rest of the top five were freshmen Aaron Aguayo in 32nd (31:48) and Ryan Warrenberg in 39th (31:59).
Both Duke and Bizuneh will be allowed to run at the 2002 NCAA Championships since the meet invites the top four finishers from each region who are not from a qualifying team.
At the NCAA West Region Championships the top 25 finishers earn all-region honors which mean the top five women Sun Devils all received the honor as well as Duke and Bizuneh for the men.
Reach the reporter at katie.crane@asu.edu.
