MICHAEL MEISINGER

Members of the UA men's cross country team practice earlier in the season at Randoph Park. The Wildcats finished fifth place in the pre-NCAA's, a performance that head coach Dave Murray said he thinks will be good enough to earn a spot in the NCAA Championships.

Tuesday October 16, 2001

After dominating their first two meets of the season, the UA women's cross country team had little to prove at the Pre-NCAA Invitational last weekend in Greenville, S.C..

In fact, when senior standout Tara Chaplin and sophomore Beth Hoge came down with illnesses late last week, head coach Dave Murray realized that running at the meet would probably only hurt his team's current standing.

So Murray left his women's team at home.

"Tara and Beth ran so well in Minnesota that if we went to the Pre-NCAAs without them, we could have only hurt ourselves," Murray explained. "The last two meets showed the quality of our team, and - in the long run - missing this meet should help us."

Murray gave his women's team a much-needed break, while their male counterparts couldn't afford such a luxury as they headed across the country for their third meet in as many weeks.

The men were in need of an impressive performance in order to further their position for an at-large bid into next month's NCAA tournament.

A well-traveled men's team faced most of the nation's best competition in South Carolina last weekend.

Due to the large number of competing teams at the meet, the race was divided in two separate divisions of 37 teams. Murray's squad stepped up to the challenge and finished in 5th place in their division, elevating their status as an NCAA Championship contender.

"We ran very, very, well and were able to beat a lot of teams," Murray said. "If (senior) Tom (Prindiville) finished where he normally does, we'd have finished even higher. But it was a very good performance, and we helped our chances for an at-large bid (into the NCAA's)."

Individually, the Wildcats were led by senior Steve Smith's 17th place finish of 24:47 on the 8,000-meter course. He was followed closely by senior Mike Cramer, who finished twenty-sixth in 25:01.

Junior Kyle Goklish and freshman Mark Anderson ran neck-and-neck throughout the race, finishing 37th and 38th respectively, with times of 25:14 and 25:15.

Still feeling the effects from an ailing back that hampered him in the early season, Prindiville slipped to an 80th-place finish with a time of 25:39.

Rounding out the Wildcats' seven finishers and pleasing their coach with their performances were sophomores Kevin Engelhardt and Matt McInvale.

With the Pac-10 Championships approaching in two weeks, the Wildcats will endure some of their most intense training - something that they were unable to do while competing the previous three weeks in a row.

"No teams at the Pre-NCAAs had run three weeks in a row and traveled such long distances, so I am even happier with how our team ran," Murray said. "We performed really well and now we have some really good training coming up to get us ready for the Pac-10s."