UCSD men’s and women’s cross country look to regroup from what head coach Ted Van Arsdale called a “”disappointing”” showing at the conference championships two weeks ago at the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II West Regional at Woodward Park in Fresno, Calif., on Nov. 9. A top-three finish would qualify the Tritons for the NCAA Division II National Championships on Nov. 23.
Both the men’s and women’s teams headed into the California Collegiate Athletic Association Championships on Oct. 26 at Bakersfield, Calif., ranked third in the West Region, but following their fourth-place finishes at the conference meet, both squads fell to sixth in the region.
The women’s team was ranked 16th in the nation before the last meet, but they fell out of the rankings the following week.
“”We had a couple of key people have bad races,”” said women’s runner Audrey Sung. “”We were a little bit intimated heading into it, but we’ve been working on our confidence and getting people healthy.””
Sung was one of the top performers, finishing second overall with the fastest 6K women’s race in UCSD history at 21:21.27. Sung earned All-CCAA honors, which is awarded to the top 15 runners in each race, for her second consecutive year.
Following Sung was Lillian Gardiner, who finished 19th with a time of 22:14.04; Meghan Bellotti (27th); Lindsay Stalker (31st); Kara Cross (35th); Mimi Hodgins (37th); and Erin O’Donnell (38th).
UCSD’s Neil Kalra became the first All-CCAA runner for the men’s team since James Nielsen won consecutive conference titles in 1999 by finishing 10th out of 49 runners with a time of 25:30.39.
Carl Lostrom finished just behind Kalra in 16th place with a time of 25:58.50. Following Lostrom and Kalra were Tov Fisher-Kirshner (20th), David Dunbar (23rd), John Morrison (24th), Alan Shapiro (25th) and Devin Callister (29th), rounding out UCSD’s top seven.
Chico State won both conference races at the CCAA Championships, ending UC Davis’s four-year championship reign on both men’s and women’s sides. Cal State Stanislaus finished third in the women’s race and moved up one spot from fifth to fourth in the West Region rankings. Cal Poly Pomona finished third on the men’s side and remained ranked fifth in the region.
Last year, the UCSD women’s team ended its season after finishing 12th at the regional meet and taking fifth place at the conference championships.
The Triton men’s team made a deeper postseason push, however, finishing third at the conference meet, fourth at the regionals and 15th overall at nationals.
To continue their season, the Tritons will need to return to their preconference form, where they were ranked third behind Chico State and UC Davis, because the West Region already gave up its fourth qualification spot.
“”We just need to race how we’ve been training,”” Sung said. “”We need everyone to step up and have a good race. We don’t need to do anything extraordinary or miraculous. We don’t need to do anything new. We just need to go out there and do it.””
