Blood and Kiptoo-Biwott Pace UO Teams to Dellinger Wins

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SPRINGFIELD, Ore. ? The University of Oregon cross country squads swept the second annual Bill Dellinger Invitational team titles Saturday at Springfield Country Club in the Coburg Hills near Marcola.

The No. 3-ranked Duck men scored 54 points thank to five top-20 finishers ? juniors Shadrack Kiptoo-Biwott (second, 23:24) and Carlos Trujillo (ninth, 23:46), sophomore Kenny Klotz (12^th, 23:49), redshirt freshman Daniel Mercado (15^th, 23:53) and sophomore Diego Mercado (16^th, 23:53).

Other UO men's finishers included redshirt freshman A.J. Acosta (26^th, 24:01), junior Scott Wall (29^th, 24:02), reshirt sophomore Jonathan Thomas (43^rd, 24:19), freshman Matthew Centrowitz (50^th, 24:27), redshirt senior Michael McGrath (58^th, 24:32), graduate student Joaquin Chapa (65^th, 24:40) and redshirt freshmen Matthew and Eric Dettman (83^rd, 24:56; 98^th, 25:13).

No. 3 Oregon won its second straight men's meet team title by 19 points and beat seven other top-30 ranked teams - No. 1 Wisconsin (second, 73), No. 17 Alabama (third, 111), No. 18 Portland (fourth, 137), No. 23 UCLA (fifth, 147), No. 6 UTEP (sixth, 148), No. 12 Washington (seventh, 176) and No. 13 Cal Poly (eighth, 183).

Other men's teams on hand Saturday included New Mexico (ninth, 221), Ohio State (10^th, 292), Colorado State (11^th, 302), Duke (12^th, 330), Utah State (13^th, 343), Marquette (14^th, 352) and Georgia (15^th, 369).

Earlier in the morning, the No. 24 Duck women scored an equally impressive win Saturday with 65 points and bested a field that included five other top-25 ranked teams - returning meet champion and No. 4 Arkansas (second, 90), No. 19 Washington (third, 93), No. 18 Colorado State (fourth, 95), No. 23 BYU (fifth, 104) and No. 15 Georgia (sixth, 162).

Other women's team finishers included Portland (seventh, 178), Wake Forest (eighth, 187), Marquette (ninth, 300), New Mexico (10^th, 301), UCLA (11^th, 322), Montana (12^th, 324), Oregon State (13^th, 331), Utah State (14^th, 360) and UTEP (15^th, 403).

Individually, sophomore Nicole Blood cruised away from the 141-woman field in the final mile to win the 6,000m race (20:04) over Washington's Katie Follett (second, 20:17) and Duck teammate Alexandra Kosinski (third, 20:24) who made her collegiate debut and ran most of the first 5,000m next to Blood.

Two other Ducks finished top 25 overall in their season debuts - redshirt freshman Keara Sammons (eighth, 20:36) and sophomore Bria Wetsch (21st, 21:02). Freshman Elizabeth Bies capped scoring (32nd, 21:10), and was followed by senior Sarah Pearson (39th, 21:17), freshman Zoe Buckman (45th, 21:21), junior Zoe Nelson (55th, 21:30), freshmen Haley Belli (56th, 21:31), Claire Michel (80th, 21:48) and Erin Lewis (109th, 22:17).

In the men's 8,000m race, Duck redshirt Shadrack Kiptoo-Biwott was in contention for the win nearly the whole race until Wisconsin junior Matt Withrow escaped from the field in the final mile to win by four seconds (23:20) over Kiptoo-Biwott (second, 23:24), and fellow early race leader Emmanuel Bor of Alabama (third, 23:26).

More than 2,000 fans were on hand Saturday morning to cheer the Ducks to victory in the meet named after Oregon running legend Bill Dellinger who was an three-time Olympian and bronze medalist, and hall of fame Duck coach.

Looking ahead, the Ducks' next scheduled competition is the Pre-NCAA Invitational, Sat., Oct. 13 on Indiana State University's LaVern Gibson Championship Course in Terre Haute, Ind. ? the same site as the NCAA Championships, Mon., Nov. 19.