The ASU cross country team heads to Springfield, Ore., this weekend for Saturday’s NCAA West Region Championships, looking to salvage its season by snagging a NCAA Championship meet berth.
The West Region Championships, hosted by Oregon, will automatically qualify the top two men’s and women’s teams for the NCAA Championships.
“[Our expectations are] really just to improve and feel like we’re ending the season on a good note,” ASU coach Louie Quintana said. “I think if we go there, and we run our best, and we don’t make the meet but we gave everything we got, then that’s great momentum heading into track season."
However, the Sun Devils aren’t ready to throw in the towel just yet.
“It’s not going to take a miracle for us to make it to the national meet, and it’s not going to take a miracle for us to run well at regionals,” senior Anna Sperry said. “We are perfectly capable of making something happen, so it’s about reminding ourselves that and not letting anything that has happened previous to this day discourage us.”
Both the women, currently ranked No. 10 in the region, and the men, No. 13, will face nationally ranked competition at the meet, including foes that they raced against two weeks ago at the Pac-10 Championships. The men’s 10k race includes competitors such as No. 2 Stanford and No. 3 Oregon, while the women’s 6k race features elite teams like No. 4 Stanford and No. 6 Arizona.
“It’s one of those situations where we have absolutely nothing to lose, so we might as well go for it, and if it falls apart, it falls apart,” redshirt junior Dylan Hatcher said.
The men have been cutting back on their workouts in practice as of late in anticipation of the 10k race, which is different than the 8k races they’ve been running all season.
“We’re taking it a lot easier [in practice lately],” Hatcher said. “We’re trying to peak at this point, so [that means] less mileage and a little bit more speed.”
The women are as healthy as they’ve been all season, and are anxious to redeem themselves for what they see as disappointing results thus far.
“We still have an opportunity to write what we want the season to go down as,” Sperry said. “It’s hard having a season that you don’t feel like you’ve accomplished a whole lot, and that’s just kind of been the big reminder for a lot of us — there’s still a chance.”
In order to have success on Saturday, both the men and women must close the gap between their packs and their usual frontrunners, junior Lindsay Prescott and redshirt senior Ben Engelhardt, as well as come out of the gates quickly.
“I think it’s just important for us to get out early,” Hatcher said. “That’s kind of been our problem all year, is that we’ve started out in the back.”
After all nine regional meets have concluded, the NCAA will announce 13 at-large selections by 5 p.m. MT Sunday on its web site, ncaa.com.
Reach the reporter at kyle.j.newman@asu.edu
