Cross country teams rest, wait for NCAA Invitational

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Amy Skieresz finished the women's race first and led the UA women to a second place finish last weekend at the Mountain West Invitational in Missoula, Mont. Arizona men's and women's cross country teams are beginning to gear up for the Pre-NCAA Invitational Oct. 10 in Lawrence, Kan.

"It was a tough three weeks on the road, but at this next meet we have to step it up another notch," junior Micheil Jones said. "We still have plenty of work to do to lock up a berth for the post season."

The Wildcat men defeated their toughest field yet last weekend at the Mountain West Invitational in Missoula, Mont., behind the typically strong running of senior Abdi Abdirahman.

Amy Skieresz, who won the event for the fourth straight year, led the women to a second place finish behind defending national champion BYU.

But as is the case with most successful teams, the supporting cast has to perform as well as the headliners. And in the men's case, that job fell to Jones and sophomore David Lopez.

Jones finished ninth and Lopez was 11th in helping Arizona post a score of 59 - 26 points ahead of second place Michigan.

"I am really proud of our guys," UA head coach Dave Murray said. "The first three ran really well, but I was also really happy with the performances of the rest of our runners, especially (Mike) Cramer and (Brent) Pederson."

Even though their finishes did not count, as they were not among the top five on their team, redshirt freshman Cramer and junior Pederson still posted solid times of 25 minutes, 39.9 seconds and 25:44.3 for 28th and 31st place, respectively.

Equally as impressive, and probably more surprising, has been the performance of freshman Tara Chaplin, who finished second to Skieresz for the third time this season.

"Having Tara running behind me pushes me to be the best I can be," Skieresz said.

All told, the women had four runners in the top 20, with junior Kristin Parrish coming in 11th and senior Brooke Murphy winding up 19th.

Last season the women were unable to qualify as a team for the NCAA championships, with Skieresz going alone. After three meets with two first place and one second place finish, the women are looking better for this season.

"Our team this year has been great," Skieresz said. "Kristen and the new girls have been huge assets and the overall positive atmosphere has helped this team tremendously."

Jones agreed that as the season has progressed, chemistry has also become one of the men's team's main strengths.

"Our team is becoming really tight," Jones said. "Dave, Jeremy, Steve (Smith) and I race out as a pack almost every race and when we do that we feel very strong."

But Murray said that no matter how strong the team feels, there are still improvements to be made before the NCAAs come around.

"This was our strongest team effort in a while," Murray said. "But we have a lot of work to do."

Mike Jenkins can be reached via e-mail at Mike.Jenkins@wildcat.arizona.edu.