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Jones wins third consecutive meet

Though it's starting to sound like a broken record, UA senior cross country runner Micheil Jones won another race this weekend.

This time, though, it was against some more noteworthy competition.

Jones' time of 24 minutes, 19 seconds was the best of a crowded field at the Stanford Invitational Saturday. His finish helped the No. 7-ranked UA men's team (46 points) come in second behind No. 2-ranked Stanford (37 points).

"Micheil is becoming one of the best cross country runners in the country," UA head coach Dave Murray said.

"At about three-quarters of a mile to go, he took off and just left them all behind. That's an outstanding time, the sixth or seventh fastest time on that course. He's really coming into his own, providing us with a tremendous up-front person," he said.

Jones was a bit surprised with his finish.

"Honestly, I didn't really expect it," he said. "Stanford wasn't running their best runner, but the team event was a lot more tight than the individual competition. There was a lot of really closely packed teams."

Junior David Lopez (eighth, 24:48), sophomores Steve Smith (11th, 24:57), Tom Prindiville (12th, 25:01) and Mike Cramer (14th, 25:04) and senior Brent Pederson (16th, 25:10) finished in a pack behind Jones.

"I think our team last year was really good, we're coming together like our team last year," Jones said. "Our scoring group was in about 40 seconds of each other. That's how you win cross country races."

Murray and Jones were especially impressed with Pederson, who fell twice during the race but managed to pick himself up and come in 16th.

"I was extremely pleased with our men's team to run as good as we did against Stanford," Murray said. "It shows good things may be coming."

Jones said the pieces are almost in place for UA to challenge Stanford for the Pacific 10 Conference title.

"I think it's going to be really close," he said. "They're definitely not out of our league. (Senior) Jeremy Lyon is coming back into shape. We're looking forward to him helping us out. We definitely have a shot to beat them."

As for the No. 16-ranked UA women, the team came in seventh with 185 points, but Murray noted that the six teams that finished ahead of the Wildcats were all ranked in the top 10, led by No. 1 Stanford and No. 2 Arkansas.

"Our girls are still learning," Murray said. "It's a new year not having Amy (Skieresz) out there. We're getting better, by the time we get to the end of the season we should be a good team."

Sophomore Tara Chaplin was the best individual finisher for Arizona, coming in 11th with a time of 17:29.

"Actually we did compete really well," Murray said. "We also had some problems. Kristin Parrish should be our No. 2 runner, she's been battling a sore leg all week. The other girls, all of them ran well, all bettered their time on the course."