As far as rematches go, Saturday’s cross country matchup between Colorado and Oregon is as enticing as it gets. The Colorado men beat out No. 4 Oregon two weeks ago at the Pre-National Invitational, which led the Buffaloes to rise to the No. 1 rank in the USTFCCCA Coaches’ National Poll. Saturday’s Pac-12 Championships will be the second of three times the two squads will face off, with the conference rivalry culminating at the NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Ind., on Nov. 23.
For Colorado, bringing home its third straight Pac-12 championship will require them to go through not only Oregon, but No. 13 Stanford on Saturday. The Buffaloes will have the home-field advantage, as the race takes place 20 minutes away from campus and will be run at 5,335 feet elevation in Louisville, Colo. Unlike either Oregon or Stanford, Colorado has the advantage of being fully acclimated to the high altitude, which will give them an aerobic edge on Saturday.
The Oregon men are led by freshman standout Edward Cheserek, whose chances at an individual conference title increased after news that the 2011 NCAA cross country champion, Arizona’s Lawi Lalang, will miss the remainder of the cross country season with a calf injury.
Seniors Parker Stinson and Mac Fleet were Oregon’s second and third runners at Pre-Nationals, finishing just a second apart and placing 15th and 16th overall, respectively. Each runner took different routes to get to their Pre-Nationals finish, as Fleet steadily ran in the top 25 for much of the race and finished strong, proclaiming afterwards that it was the best cross country race of his life. Stinson, on the other hand, faded during the last mile of the race after being among the top five runners along with Cheserek.
With the Pac-12 Championships featuring fewer teams than at Pre-Nationals and closely resembling what Stinson described as similar to a “dual meet” between Oregon, Colorado and Stanford, the senior talked about how the strategy of front-running is something we likely won’t see from him this Saturday.
“It’s a totally different kind of race,” Stinson said. “Especially being in Boulder (at high altitude), I can’t just go out there and run hard and break everybody. That strategy didn’t even work at pre-nats because no one else was there besides me and Edward. I think that strategy works at nationals because there are going to be some really top-level guys to help me and Edward out and push the pace and get away from a lot of people.”
“At the end of the day, if you do that at a big race and you stay out in front, you can get 20 points on Colorado or something like that by being a real good frontrunner. Here, if I did that, I’m going to get what? Two points?”
Rounding out Oregon’s top five at Pre-Nationals were freshman Jake Leingang and junior Daniel Winn, who came in 34th and 44th, respectively. A potential wild card on Saturday is Northeastern transfer Eric Jenkins, who is entered to run at the Pac-12 Championships and could make an immediate impact if he makes his Oregon debut on Saturday.
On the women’s side, the No. 12 Oregon squad will go up against a very competitive field that features top-ranked Arizona along with No. 13 Washington, No. 16 Colorado, No. 20 Stanford and No. 26 Arizona State.
After losing their top three finishers from last year’s NCAA Championship team, the Oregon women have featured a very tight spread and have run in a pack at the majority of its races this season.
“We just need to focus on ourselves and lean on each other in the hard parts of the race,” said senior Megan Patrignelli, who has been Oregon’s top finisher at all four meets this season. “If we can all stay together, I think we’ll be good. It’s going to come down to how close our pack stays together.”
After Patrignelli, the Oregon women have relied heavily on a young nucleus of runners. Sophomores Molly Grabill, Annie Leblanc and Abbey Leonardi along with freshman Maggie Schmaedick rounded out the top five at Pre-Nationals and have a good shot at finishing on the podium come Saturday.
Oregon lost a lot of talent from last year’s team, but Patrignelli remains confident that this group of girls will put forward a strong showing come Saturday as they attempt to defend their Pac-12 title.
“All season we’ve been working and putting the pieces together,” Patrignelli said. “It’s a different strategy (than last year) but it’s still the same goals. We’re just going to get there a different way.”
The men’s race will begin at 10:40 a.m., local time on Saturday (9:40 a.m., Pacific Time) with the start of the women’s race scheduled for 11:40 a.m.
Follow Chris Mosch on Twitter @chris_mosch