Junior transfer leads men's cross country team to victory

Ryan A. Mihalyi Arizona Daily Wildcat Men's cross country runner Abdi Abdirahman, a transfer student from Pima Community College, jogs during a recent practice session at Reid Park. Abdirahman captured the men's' individual title on the 8,000 meter course this weekend at the Jammin' Invitational in Brea, Calif.

Junior transfer Abdi Abdirahman turned that wish into reality.

Abdirahman, who transferred to Arizona from Pima Community College this fall, led the Wildcat men's cross country team to victory this weekend at the Jammin' Invitational in Brea, Calif.

"I think it was a good way to start the season," Abdirahman said of his time of 24-minutes, 58 seconds, which paced all of the 150 runners that competed on Saturday.

"Abdi showed he's gonna be a factor this season," UA head coach Dave Murray said. "He looked like he was cruising."

"I was a little nervous," Abdirahman said. "It was my first race for a big school."

Murray was also pleased with the rest of the men's team, which featured five of the top 10 finishers at the meet.

"That's great," Murray said. "We had less than one minute between our number-one and number-five runners."

Coming in behind Abdirahman were sophomore Micheil Jones (5th, 25:22), junior Jeff McLarty (6th, 25:30), sophomore Jeremy Lyon (7th, 25:30) and freshman David Lopez (10th, 25:43).

"As a team we looked real good," Abdirahman said. "We have some real strong guys."

Murray felt that competition was "decent," but it will get better as the season goes on. Still, Abdirahman feels confident that he can continue to excel.

"I expect to run faster in each race this season," he said.

The UA women's team finished second behind the Reebok/VO2 Max team, a post-collegiate squad. The Arizona women had been the defending champs at the Jammin' Invitational.Leading the way for the women was, once again, junior Amy Skieresz.

Skieresz finished with a time of 17:06, easily topping the field, according to Murray.

"Amy was Amy," he said. "She cruised after the first thousand-meters."

Skieresz's time would have been even better had she not wound up making a wrong turn on the course.

"Some of the spectators told her to go the wrong way," Murray said.

Other top finishers for the Wildcats were senior Virginia Camacho (4th, 17:50), sophomore Kristen Parrish (12th, 18:27) and senior Tone Bratteng (17th, 18:49).

"The two I was pleased with were Virginia and Tone," Murray said. "She (Virginia) ran a solid race. She's going to be a real plus for us this year.

"Tone was our number four runner. She stepped it up quite a bit compared to last season."

Murray said that one of the big factors in the race was the heat and humidity - the temperature was well into the 90's, and the humidity was "very high."

"Overall we had a good start," Murray said. "I'm very, very pleased with the men's team. I think we're going to have a good season."