Beavers to run at top meet
September 29, 2015 | Women's Cross Country
A deep, quality field awaits the Oregon State cross country team this Friday at the University of Washington Invitational.
The 6,000-meter race starts at 3:15 p.m. at the Jefferson Park Golf Course, located east of I-5 on Beacon Avenue South in the Beacon Hill neighborhood. Competing teams are OSU; defending champion Stanford; Oregon; UCLA and Washington State from the Pacific-12 Conference, and Air Force, BYU, Eastern Washington, Gonzaga, Portland and Seattle.
“This is one of the two major meets in the country this weekend, along with the Notre Dame Invitational,” OSU coach Kelly Sullivan said. “It's going to be good competition, the field is elite. It's a premier meet.
“From an individual standpoint it will be important for the group we line up to be prepared, get something out of it and use this meet to set us for our next meet,” the Oct. 19 NCAA Pre-Nationals at Louisville. “I like how we're preparing, our confidence. We've had two amazing weeks of training.”
The course consists of three 2,000-meter loops on flat fairways. The women's record is 19:15.6, set by Oregon's Jordan Hasay in 2012. Stanford's Elise Cranny won the 2014 race in 20:11; she will run again on Friday.
OSU's lineup will feature juniors Holly Cavalluzzo, Morgan Anderson, Monica Anderson, Sam Lewis, Maureen Tremblay and Macaulay Wilson; sophomores Kristiane Width and Kala Kopecek, and freshmen Rachel Johnson and Kaely Gordon.
The Beavers entered an almost-identical lineup at their last meet, the Sept. 19 Sundodger Invitational in Seattle. The only new face on Friday will be Morgan Anderson, who was a late scratch from the previous meet with a minor injury.
Anderson is one of OSU's top four runners. She placed seventh in her only competition this season and was OSU's third finisher at the 2014 Pac-12 and its second finisher at the ensuing West Regional.
“The best thing going on right now is, we are getting a lot healthier,” Sullivan said. “We are still holding Kira Kelly out, but she is training and will be back in a couple weeks.
“Our core group has had a great two weeks of training” following the Sundodger meet. “We just want to continue to build off of that.
“The beauty of our sport is, the goal is to have the best seven runners at the end of the season. We're getting closer to doing that.”
Friday's race is also a primer for the NCAA West Regional meet, set for Nov. 13 at the Jefferson Park layout.
“It will give us an opportunity to race on a course we'll be on at the end of the season,” and thus be better prepared for the regional, Sullivan added.
McKinnon redshirting: Sophomore Sam McKinnon, one of OSU's top runners in 2014 as a true freshman, will redshirt this year after sustaining a non-running injury this past summer. She placed 65th at 2014 Pac-12 meet and 150th at NCAA West Regional last fall, and then placed fourth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the Pac-12 track championships this past spring and qualified for the NCAA West Regional.
Last time out: OSU finished fifth at the nine-team Sundodger Invitational at Lincoln Park in West Seattle on Sept. 19. Junior Holly Cavalluzzo was OSU's top placer, as she took 14th overall with a time of 21:17 over 6,000 meters.
In the record books: Junior Holly Cavalluzzo ranks second all-time in races of 5,000 meters (16:55) and eighth on 6,000-meter courses (21:11).
Other 2015 team members with top-20 career times over 5,000 meters are sophomore Sam McKinnon (5, 17:06); junior Emily Weber (11, 17:26); junior Morgan Anderson (12, 17:27) and sophomore Kristiane Width (18, 17:43).
Over 6,000 meters, Weber and McKinnon rank No. 2 (20:52); junior Kira Kelly rank 14th (21:27), and Width ranks 16th (21:32).
Regional rankings: The Beavers are not ranked in the West Region by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA). Other Pac-12 schools in the regional rankings are Stanford (1); Oregon (2); Washington (4); California (5); UCLA (6); Arizona State (7), Arizona (11) and Washington State (14).
National rankings: No. 2 Colorado leads five Pac-12 teams ranked in this week's the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) top-30 poll. Stanford (4), Oregon (5), Washington (15) and California (30) are also ranked.
Coming up: Freshman Juliana Mount will run unattached at the Charles Bowles Invitational at Willamette University on Saturday. The Beavers return to action on Oct. 16 at the NCAA Pre-Nationals Invitational at the Tom Sawyer State Park in Louisville. It is also the site of the NCAA Championships on Nov. 21.
Pac-12 Championships: The annual Pacific-12 Conference Championships are scheduled for Oct. 30 at the Colfax Golf Club in Colfax, Wash., hosted by Washington State. The women's race starts at 10:30 a.m. and will be televised by Pac-12 Networks.
For more information: Follow the team by Facebook at Facebook.com/OSUTrackCrossCountry or on Twitter at twitter.com/@beavers_track.
