By
Chris Martin
Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA captures both men's and women's titles
While the Arizona men's and women's cross country teams were expected to do well Saturday at the Purdue Invitational, few expected both teams to dominate so early in the season.
After taking both the men's and women's team and individual crowns at the invitational, UA solidified itself as a national power.
"I'm pleased with it," senior David Lopez said. "We knew we were going to go in there and win. It is a team effort."
The No. 5 UA men (1-0 overall) easily outdistanced the competition, winning the meet with 19 points. Purdue came in second place with 69 points.
Also helping the men's team was the absence of Butler University, the Wildcats' main competition, from West Lafayette, Ind.
"Butler didn't show up, and they were our biggest competition and we weren't really worried about them," junior Mike Cramer said.
Both Cramer and junior Tara Chaplin won the event's individual crowns.
For Cramer - a walk-on - it was his first collegiate title, which he captured in a time of 25 minutes, 23.40 seconds on the 8,000-meter course at the Ackerman Hill Golf Course.
"Mike deserves everything he gets," UA head coach Dave Murray said. "He's just an extremely, extremely hard worker. On Saturday, it paid off."
With Cramer leading the way, the men's team dominated the leaderboard as Wildcat runners held five of the top six individual times.
Aside from Cramer, junior Steve Smith came in third, freshman Andrew Carlson was fourth, Lopez fifth and junior Tom Prindiville was sixth.
Carlson's performance was particularly refreshing for Arizona - the true freshman exceeded expectations in his first collegiate race by running with Cramer for almost the entire race before fading out during the last 800m.
"He was by far the most pleasant surprise," Murray said. "He is a much better runner than I thought he would be at this stage."
The men had some additional motivation in the first race of the year - the team wanted to make sure that their No. 5 preseason ranking was justified.
"We like to back up our ranking and we like to show we deserved our ranking," Cramer said.
Chaplin also proved that she was one of the elite female distance runners in the nation. Running away from the field, the junior dominated the 6,000m course by capturing the third individual title of her career.
"She was definitely the class of the field," Murray said. "After the first 100m, she was gone."
With Chaplin leading the way for the women, Arizona outdistanced the field as they finished with 27 points, easily defeating second place Purdue which had 43 points.
Senior Katrin Engelen finished second individually followed by junior Erin Doherty, who placed seventh.
"Erin had a great race and she can be even better," Murray said.
Even after dominating this weekend, Murray said some runners still have much to improve on.
"It showed some of our athletes they have to step it up a bit, especially the younger ones," Murray said. "Overall, it was a very fine opening for us."
