Disappointment meets UCLA team in Seattle
By Daily Bruin Staff
Oct. 29, 2000 9:00 p.m.
Pac-10 Championship 1. Stanford 21 2. Oregon 66 3.
Arizona 70 6. UCLA 142
By Dylan Hernandez
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Prior to the start of the Pac-10 cross country championships in
Seattle on Saturday, UCLA head coach Eric Peterson asked his top
runner, Bryan Green, what place he thought he could finish.
“I’d like to be 15th,” Green told him.
“Well, don’t like to be 15th,” Peterson
replied. “Be 15th.”
Green, however, outperformed his own expectations, placing
eighth to give the Bruin program a positive note on an otherwise
rough day.
As a team, UCLA came in sixth with 142 points, well below the
fourth-place finish they coveted.
The two teams the Bruins wanted to beat, Arizona State (114) and
Washington (117), were well ahead at fourth and fifth places,
respectively.
Stanford, the nation’s third-ranked team, won the meet,
putting five runners in the top seven overall to tally just 21
points.
No. 13, Oregon (66) was aided by a surprisingly strong
performance from sophomore Jason Hartmann, to upset No. 10 Arizona
(70) for second place.
The race, held in Seattle on the flat Lincoln Park course, went
out slower than expected, with the leaders hitting the mile at 4
minutes, 35 seconds.
The pack of Bruins, consisting of Green, senior Paul Muite,
junior Justin Patananan and freshman Jon Rankin, were part of the
mob that followed a few seconds back.
Shortly after, Rankin and Patananan pressed forward, while Green
and Paul Muite stayed behind.
“It was Paul’s job to set the pace and everyone
else’s to stay with him,” Peterson said. “But we
had two young guys who got a little excited and strung us
out.”
At the three mile mark, Green and Muite made their moves, as
Rankin and Patananan started to struggle.
Meanwhile, up at the front of the race, Stanford runners
Hartmann and All-American Jonathan Riley led a group that zipped
through four miles at 19:00.
With one mile remaining in the 8,000-meter race, Riley and
Hartmann gapped the rest of the runners. Soon after, Riley left
Hartmann behind and sped away to the win. Riley crossed the finish
line in a course record 23:39.59.
Hartmann, who was nearly swallowed up by the chase pack, hung on
for second in 23:47.37.
Not too far behind, Green made his late-race charge.
“I never really picked it up,” Green said. “I
just maintained my pace and everyone started coming back.
“Soon, I started seeing guys that I used to think
I’d really like to be able to run with. It was really easy to
pick them off from there.”
Down the final stretch, Green passed Arizona’s David Lopez
and Oregon’s Michael Kasahun, two runners who always
out-performed him in California’s prep ranks. The
Bruins’ front-runner was eighth, completing the circuit in
23:57.57.
Muite and Rankin both finished about a half minute later at
24:31.50 and 24:32.28, respectively. Muite ranked 23rd and Rankin
was 24th.
Patananan (42nd, 25:12.60) and senior Andrew Wulf (45th,
25:16.46) completed UCLA’s scoring five.
Seniors Scott Abbott (46th, 25:36.05), the team captain, and
Mason Moore (47th, 25:37.32) were the other Bruin finishers.
Earlier in the year, the senior duo carried more weight in the
UCLA lineup, but were held back in this race due to injuries.
Abbott had a strained back and Moore went into the race with a
strained left hip, saying he had trouble pulling his leg through
the duration of the contest.
“I felt we did what was needed,” Moore said.
“Considering we weren’t that solid in the back, we did
fine.”
“We made a mistake and it was costly in a field with only
60 runners,” Peterson added. “But we’re pretty
upbeat. The men’s team has improved so much from a year
ago.”
Green, though disappointed by his team’s poor performance,
was ecstatic of his personal finish.
“I was like, “˜Oh my god, I just got
eighth,'” he said.
The Bruins will have two weeks to rest before racing at the
Western Regional finals in Fresno. Unless they pull off several
miraculous upsets, it will be their last race of the season.
Green, however, can qualify for the national championships as an
individual if he places in the top 25 overall and is also among the
top four finishers not on an advancing team.
