Nov. 16, 2007
Well, our season ended with a very bittersweet taste! We were out in Eugene for the NCAA West Regional. Again, this is one of the toughest regions in the country, and both our men and women did well, but just fell short of our season goals.
On the women's side, I knew we had to beat UC Santa Barbara to have any shot at an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships. Our women ran pretty well, with Sara Trané, Isley Gonzalez and Meghan Leonard continuing to run very well up front. As individuals they were only about 15 seconds out of a chance to get to the nationals, and anytime you have a team with 3 runners with a shot at an individual bid you have a pretty good team. We continued to be haunted by the lack of depth at our fifth runner. I think Lisa ran pretty well for her, but we need our fifth runner to be in the top 50 not top 100. That being said, Santa Barbara hit a home run. They ran their best race of the season and I really don't think we could have beaten them on that day.
The men's story was almost identical to the women's. Drew Polley, Andrew Jones and Alex Grant all had great races, but our 5th runner was just too far back. Drew was in the top 25 individuals, and I really thought he was going to nationals as an individual. When the at-large bids came out on Sunday, UCLA was the first team not to go, which placed their 3 individuals in front of him (4 individuals go), so Drew became the 5th individual. So close! Again, I was pleased with the men's place and the way UCLA, Cal Poly, and ASU ran, I'm not sure we could have caught them on our best day.
So now we take the Turkey Holiday off, and get back to work on November 26, and begin preparing for the 2008 Pac-10 Track Championships. I am pleased with the work both teams got in this fall and am very excited for the spring track season. I think we will continue to improve through the spring.
Next season we only lose Isley and Collier on the women's side, put Haley back in the mix and we will again have a great team. We need to have a few folks step up into our fourth and fifth spots, and we will be better than ever. As for the men, we will have some shoes to fill losing Alex and Andrew, but we do have some great depth of guys that should develop into top 30 guys by next season.
Thanks for tuning in, and enjoy your holiday season!
JD
