Tuesday October 9, 2001

Heading into this past weekend's Murray Keatinge Invitational in Orono, Maine, UA head coach Dave Murray said he figured the UA men's and women's cross country teams would likely have an easy time against the competition.

He was right.

The women dominated the field and earned a first-place finish, while the men improved greatly on their opening meet performance with a second-place finish.

Murray was able to enjoy his team's effort while remembering Keatinge, a man who Murray counted as a close friend. Keatinge died last spring.

"It was a very nice meet in terms of the memorial," Murray said. "There was a beautiful ceremony and a real nice awards dinner. It was a real nice experience for the kids."

While the meet lacked the competition that the Wildcats will find in next week's pre-NCAA Invitiational, Murray said his squad accomplished everything that it needed to during the trip.

"Our men's team ran 100 percent better than last week," Murray said, referring to a 16th place finish in a highly competitive Roy Griak Invitational field.

Led by freshman Mark Anderson's sixth-place finish (24:30.6), the men ran in a very tight pack throughout and placed five runners in the top-12. Senior Mike Cramer (7th, 24:32.9), senior Steve Smith (8th, 24:34.1), and junior Kyle Goklish (9th, 24:44.2) followed directly behind Anderson.

Senior Tom Prindiville rounded out the Wildcats' top-five, finishing 12th with a time of 24:56.2.

The Arizona men showed their strength in finishing with 42 points, second only to national powerhouse and conference rival Stanford's 25. Michigan- a team that finished ahead of the Wildcats a week earlier in Minneapolis - finished in third place with 76 points.

"Beating Michigan was crucial because we are now ahead of them for an at-large bid into the NCAAs," Murray explained. "We really ran poorly a week ago so it was very important for us to finish in the top three."

In less dramatic fashion, the women's cross country team steamrolled to an enormous margin of victory at Orono, and totaled a season-low 19 points. Purdue University finished in second with 52 points.

Dominating from the race's start, the women were led by senior Tara Chaplin's convincing first place finish of 16:52.6. Her strongest challenge came from teammate sophomore Beth Hoge, who finished the 5000-meter course in second place in 17:17.7.

All seven Wildcat runners finished in the top-10. Following Chaplin and Hoge, senior Erin Doherty finished third in 17:28.0. The next pack of Arizona runners began with senior Jennifer Burris (17:42.8) in sixth place, junior Kim Bates (18:00.7) in seventh place and junior Nicole Gurnicz (18:03.7) in eighth place. The final Arizona runner to cross the line was junior Cara Cline in 10th place (18:12.7).

"The girls performance really showed that we have a very strong team," Murray said. "We were much better than the competition, and are in good shape for the pre-NCAA's."

Adding to the Wildcat's high hopes for this weekend's meet is the prospective return of senior standout Abby Peters. Peters has sat out of her teams first two meets in order to rest a nerve injury in her hip.

The Wildcats travel to Greenville, S.C. this weekend to compete in the pre-NCAA Invitational on Sunday.