Oregon West Regional Meet Preview
OREGON WOMEN’S SEASON PREVIEW
The 18-woman Duck women’s roster is one of its deepest ever and features one All-Pac-10 honoree, another Foot Locker champion and five runners overall with Foot Locker national prep experience.
Junior Zoe Nelson was also a second-team all-league pick at the Stanford-hosted Pac-10 Championships last fall with her 14th-place finish, and senior Sarah Pearson is a two-time, top-20 finisher in the event.
Sophomore Nicole Blood and redshirt freshman Keara Sammons were the top freshman finishers on the track last spring in the NCAA 5,000m, and 10,000m. Sophomore Bria Wetsch, the national 2-mile prep leader in 2006, joined Blood and Sammons in the 2005 Foot Lock Championships as prep seniors.
An equally talented freshman class followed their lead and joined the team this fall and includes Elizabeth Bies, the 2005 Nike Team Nationals harrier champion and a two-time top-12 Foot Locker finisher, national 1,600m record holder Alexandra Kosinski, Oregon state harrier runner-up Hayley Belli and Oregon state 3,000m champion Claire Michael.
Another addition, Brown transfer and sophomore Brooke Giuffre, ran in UO’s top seven in several early season meets and ran in the regional meet for the Bears last fall.
OREGON MEN’S SEASON PREVIEW
The 32-man Duck men’s roster program is equally impressive and features two All-Americans, three All-Pac-10 selections (including last year’s Pac-10 Athlete and Newcomer of the Year honorees), and two Foot Locker champions among the 10 runners with Foot Locker Championships experience.
Junior Galen Rupp and sophomore Diego Mercado were All-Americans last fall in the NCAA Championships (sixth / 49th), and redshirt junior Shadrack Kiptoo-Biwott claimed similar honors in 2004 (15th). Rupp won UO’s 10th Pac-10 individual title last fall, while Kiptoo-Biwott was also a Pac-10 All-First Team selection for his sixth-place finish and Mercado was a second-team honoree and placed 11th overall. After the fall season, Rupp and Mercado were tabbed Pac-10 Athlete and Newcomer of the Year in a vote by Pac-10 cross country coaches.
UO's men's recruiting class was also arguably the nations' best, and featured Pan Am junior 1,500m champion and 2-mile prep season leader Matthew Centrowitz, graduate school transfer and track All-American Joaquin Chapa, their second straight Foot Locker champion in Chad Hall, and Washington 3,200m state champion Chris Kwiatkowski.
HEAD COACH PROFILE
The 2007 season marks the third for Vin Lananna as the University of Oregon’s associate athletic director and director of men’s and women’s cross country and track and field. Prior to his arrival in Eugene in July 2005, Lananna served two seasons as director of athletics and physical education at Oberlin College in Ohio from the fall of 2003 through the summer of 2005.
He has quickly worked with magic with the UO distance squads, and in return was tabbed the Pac-10 and West Regional Men’s Coach of the Year last fall after the Men of Oregon scored their first pair of same season championship victories since 1989, then tied for fifth in the NCAA Championships. The Duck women took top-four in the 2005 and '06 Pac-10 Championships (third/fourth) for their first back-to-back top-four league finishes since 1997 and ’98.
Lananna is no stranger to the West Regional after he served as the Stanford director of track and field and cross country from the fall of 1992 through the spring of 2003. In that span, his Cardinal men claimed 15 West Regional team championships (8M-1995-2002 / 7W ? 1994, ’96, ’97, ’99, 2000, ’01, ?02), along with six individual harrier crowns (3M ? 2000, ’01, ’02 / 3W ? 1992, ’99, 2002). At the national level, his men’s and women’s teams combined for four NCAA cross country team titles (3M, 1W), 14 medal stand, top-four team placings (8M, 6W) and 57 All-America honors (33M, 24W).
In his prior stint as assistant athletic director and head coach at Dartmouth from 1980-1992, his men’s cross country teams claimed six top-20 NCAA finishes ? including runner-up efforts in 1986 and ’87 ? to go along with two top-20 women’s placings, and 37 combined All-America honors in track and field and cross country. In return for his prior two programs’ success at the NCAA Championships, he was a combined five-time NCAA Coach of the Year honoree in men’s and women’s cross country and track and field.
OREGON REGIONAL HISTORY
Since the Duck women began varsity competition in 1975, they have finished top-five in the regional/district action 28 of the past 31 years, including 14 team titles ? the most of any team ? along with five runner-up nods and three, third-place efforts. Individually, Milena Glusac’s win in 1994 was the most recent of the Ducks’ eight women’s victories and ties Stanford for the most of any school, followed by Arizona (5).
The Duck men have won six regional team titles since 1979 (the most recent in 1989) ? third-best behind both Stanford and Arizona (first-tie, 9). Going back to 1969 when the men’s regional and Pac-8 races were held in conjunction but scored separately, Duck men have won nine individual crowns ? the last by Steve Fein in 1999 ? and the second-most behind Washington State (11). The regional and league championships were held separately starting in 1982.
