They don’t call him “King Cheserek” for nothing.

Senior Edward Cheserek became the first man to win four consecutive Pac-12 cross country individual titles. He broke the tape in 23 minutes, 58.9 seconds over the 8-kilometer course on Friday morning at the Randolph North Golf Course in Tucson, Arizona.

Only two other men have come close to achieving this feat – Oregon’s Steve Prefontaine (1970, 1971, 1973) and Washington State’s Henry Rono (1976, 1978, 1979).

Cheserek led the Oregon men to a fourth-place finish of 94 points, along with Travis Neuman (13^th), Levi Thomet (22^nd), Matthew Maton (28^th) and Tanner Anderson (30^th). The positions of the top five runners contribute to the team score. Whoever has the lowest points wins.

The rest of Oregon’s traveling team included Sam Prakel (33^rd), Tim Gorman (43^rd), Austin Tamagno (49^th), Jake Leingang (53^rd) and Bryan Fernandez (66^th).

The men’s lowest finish since 2005 was sixth. The women’s lowest was fourth, in 2011.

After training through Oregon’s record rainfall in October, the Ducks felt like fish out of water as Tucson treated them to a hot morning that soared into the triple digits. The men were flagged off at 10:30 a.m., and the record-high temperatures caused a number of runners to require medical attention after the races, including Oregon’s Sam Prakel and Austin Tamagno.

Though the defending champion No. 7 Colorado entered the championship ranked lower than No. 2 Stanford and No. 3 Oregon, Colorado emerged as a champion, extending its winning streak to six years with a score of 41.

Freshman Katie Rainsberger emerged as the top freshman in the championship with her fifth place finish. She was the first Oregon woman to complete the 6-kilometer course and finished in 20:30.6, eight seconds behind champion Amy-Eloise Neal of Washington.

This is the highest finish by a Duck, true freshman since Jordan Hasay placed third in 2009.

Along with Rainsberger, the team of Alli Cash (13^th), Samantha Nadel (22^nd), Emma Abrahamson (23^rd) and Maggie Schmaedick (25^th) brought the women to fourth with a total of 88 points.

Rounding off the rest of the Oregon women’s traveling team are Jessica Hull (27^th), Ashley Maton (45^th), Frida Berge (59^th) and Perrin Xthona (103^rd).

Colorado, the top-ranked team in the nation, defended its title in a convincing fashion, tallying a score of 33 that was well ahead of Washington’s second-place score of 74. Stanford grabbed third place with 83 points, just five points ahead of Oregon.

The Ducks immediately left after the race to catch their flight back to Eugene, missing the prize ceremony.

The next race for the Ducks is the NCAA West Regional on Nov. 11 at the Haggis Oaks Golf Complex in Sacramento, California, where the team will try to qualify for the NCAA Championships on Nov. 18 in Terre Haute, Indiana.

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After building on their race experience over the past few meets, the Ducks will embark on the championship portion of their schedule starting with the Pac-12 Cross Country Championships on Friday morning at the Randolph North Golf Course in Tucson, Arizona.

“This is probably the toughest conference in the country,” associate head coach Andy Powell said. “I feel like we’re prepared, and I think we’ll have a strong showing.”

The women’s 6-kilometer race will flag off at 9:30 a.m. and the men’s 8-kilometer race will start at 10:30 a.m.

All eyes will be on senior Edward Cheserek to see if he can become the first man to sweep the Pac-12 Championships in his cross country career. Doing so will cement him in a league of his own and bring him one step closer to bagging his fourth Pac-12 Athlete of the Year award.

Only two other men have come close to achieving this feat – Oregon’s Steve Prefontaine (1970, 1971, 1973) and Washington State’s Henry Rono (1976, 1978, 1979).

So far, the odds seem to be in Cheserek’s favor. Besides winning 15 out of his last 17 cross country races, he has never finished below fourth in a collegiate cross country race.

To make Pac-12 history, Cheserek has to fend off a strong field of rivals consisting of six past NCAA All-Americans: John Dressel and Ben Saarel from Colorado; Grant Fisher, Sean McGorty and Sam Wharton from Stanford and Colby Gilbert from Washington. Gilbert last dethroned the distance king in the 5,000-meter event at the Pepsi Invitational earlier this year.

The last time the Oregon men held the championship trophy was in 2008. The closest the No. 3 team in the nation has come to winning the title was in 2009 when they finished 17 points behind Stanford. Last year, they placed third.

“We haven’t lost a meet yet, so hopefully we’ll win that one too,” sophomore Matthew Maton said. “We’re all in really good shape right now.”

Of the Oregon men, Cheserek, Jake Leingang, Bryan Fernandez, Travis Neuman, Sam Prakel, Tanner Anderson and Maton have raced in the Pac-12 before. New faces to the Pac-12 scene include senior Dartmouth transfer Tim Gorman and freshmen Jackson Mestler, Austin Tamagno and Levi Thomet.

Three other top-10 ranked teams will race in the Pac-12 championships as well: No. 2 Stanford, No. 7 Colorado and No. 10 UCLA. Colorado has won the championship title five years in a row.

The women’s field is not too shabby either. The Oregon women, currently ranked fifth, will be competing against top-ranked teams such as No. 1 Colorado, No. 2 Washington and No. 11 Stanford. The Oregon women last won the title in 2014.

Last year, Oregon women finished six points behind champion Colorado. Six of the women from that team are still around to form the nucleus of the team this year, namely Alli Cash, who finished sixth last year, Frida Berge, Maggie Schmaedick, Emma Abrahamson, Ashley Maton and Jessica Hull.

Joining the fray this year are Georgetown transfer Sam Nadel, freshmen Katie Rainsberger and Perrin Xthona.

Rainsberger has consistently been the first Oregon woman to cross the finish line this season, establishing herself as the top female distance runner at Oregon since her debut in the Washington Invitational. She said the Arizona course will be flatter and hopes to get some quality fast times out of it.

“Of course we want to run well tomorrow, but we want to run well more so in a month,” Rainsberger said.

The ladies’ field includes six past NCAA All-Americans. Besides Cash, the field features California’s Bethan Knights; Colorado’s Kaitlyn Benner and Erin Clark; and Stanford’s Elise Cranny and Vanessa Fraser.

Powell said racing in the Pac-12 Championships is a great opportunity for his runners to check out their competition come Nationals in November.

“You get a feel for who the different runners are out there and how they race,” Powell said. “We just keep wanting to get closer and closer to them.”

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– Oregon women’s soccer scored its first win in the Pac-12 conference win on Thursday evening against Arizona after tallying seven straight losses. They have four more matches left in conference play to improve on their standings.

– Why is Oregon’s defense suffering so much? Out of the 20 players the football program signed in its recruiting class of 2013, eight of them were dedicated to defense. Of the eight, only Tyree Robinson is starting while the others are either no longer around or buried in the depth charts.

– The Oregon women‘s basketball team is projected to finish seventh in the Pac-12 preseason poll, while the Oregon men rank fifth nationally in the preseason coaches poll.

– Royce Freeman is set to return for the game against Cal on Friday evening. Here are some players to watch for.

– At last Saturday’s Pre-Nationals, the men’s cross country team were eventually pronounced champions after an initial mix-up in which the organizers had missed counting Duck senior Sam Prakel. The women clinched second. They will compete in the Pac-12 Championships on Oct. 28 in Tucson, Arizona.

– Offensive lineman Cameron Hunt shed light on his controversial comment that some of his teammates “don’t even care if we win or lose.” Oregon offensive coordinator Matt Lubick disagreed with his claim about lack of effort.

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After the Golden Bears scored their first goal via a penalty kick in the 20th minute, they were unstoppable.

California, which ranks No. 10 in the NCAA RPI list, established a clear win of 2-0 over Oregon on Saturday night at Papé Field. The Ducks trail far behind them in 44th place.

This is Oregon’s seventh straight loss. The Ducks’ record is now 0-6-0 in Pac-12 Conference play.

“Every game is a beast,” Oregon head coach Kat Mertz said. “That’s why it’s the conference of champions.”

A heavy thunderstorm, which had been brewing the entire day, parted just in time for the game to start on schedule. The Golden Bears had strong possession of the ball throughout the match, attempting 12 shots. The Ducks, however, could not maintain control over the ball, often having their passes intercepted or kicked out of play. At the end of the match, the Ducks recorded just four attempts on goal.

“It’s hard to prepare for Cal’s set pieces,” Mertz said. “They have 50 some odd trick plays left and right. So for us, I thought we did well.”

The Cal team consists of strong players such as forward Arielle Ship, who earned Pac-12 Player of the Year honors last year, and goalkeeper Emily Boyd, who was named Pac-12 Goalkeeper of the Week four days ago.

In the second half, Cal launched a fast attack that the Oregon defense could not respond to in time. The Golden Bears executed a perfect cross to land their second goal to lead 2-0.

With three minutes remaining, Oregon midfielder Miranda Schulz took a hard tumble and had to be escorted off the field. Mertz later said that she had landed awkwardly on her knee.

“I thought she played really well today,” Mertz said of Schulz. “She was really going at people, going through things.”

Oregon defender Caitlyn Wong, who returned to the pitch a few weeks ago, was limping at times during the match. Her dogged determination, however, has not gone unnoticed.

“She’s a warrior,” Mertz said. “She definitely leads this team by her commitment and willingness to do whatever it takes. She’s sliding, diving. The poor kid’s had so many surgeries, but she’s the first one to put her body in front of the ball to protect it from the back line.”

Mertz said the team will work on defensive maneuvers such as launching a counter attack and not giving up penalty kicks, while at the same time figuring out a quicker transition that will get the attacking players down the field quicker.

“We’ll dust off our broken hearts a little bit and come back and be ready to work tomorrow,” Mertz said.

Though the Ducks have been up against highly ranked teams, the players are not about to give up anytime soon.

“Just keep fighting, keep our heads up, and keep coming in aggressive and playing hard,” defender Ashlee Schulz said.

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After commanding top-place finishes in the races along the West Coast, the Ducks will travel across the country to Terre Haute, Indiana, where they will compete in the Pre-Nationals Invitational on Saturday.

There, they will check out the stomping ground for the NCAA championships that looms just a month away. The last time the Ducks won an NCAA cross-country title was in 2012 after the women ended a 25-year title drought.

After contesting at Louisville, Kentucky, last year, the championships will return to the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course, which hosted the competition in 2014.

The women, who will race over six kilometers, will be flagged off at 8 a.m. PST. The men will contest the 8-kilometer course at 8:35 a.m. PST.

Currently, the men rank fourth in the nation and will be the top ranked team at the meet. They will be up against four other teams who currently sit in the top-10 – No. 5 Arkansas, No. 6 Colorado and No. 7 Portland.

The last time the men won the pre-nationals was in 2009. The closest they have come to that was in 2014 when Edward Cheserek led the team to a second-place finish with his individual title. The men will stick to what has been working – they will field Cheserek, who won the first two of his three NCAA individual titles on this course in 2013 and 2014, along with Sam Prakel, Matthew Maton, Tanner Anderson, Blake Haney, Bryan Fernandez, Travis Neuman and Tom Gorman.

Bolstering the team will be freshmen Austin Tamagno and Levi Thomet, who may make their debut in an Oregon singlet on Saturday.

The women, currently ninth in the nation, will battle against top-ranked teams such as No. 2 Colorado, No. 5 Portland, No. 7 Stanford, No. 12 Arkansas, No. 13 Michigan and No. 16 Eastern Michigan. In 2014, the Ducks took second, which is their best finish for this race.

Leading the charge to improve on Oregon’s placing is freshman Katie Rainsberger, who debuted for the Ducks at the Washington Invitational and established herself as Oregon’s top runner. Joining her are Jessica Hull, Ashley Maton, Emma Abrahamson, Maggie Schmaedick, Frida Berge, Sam Nadal and Perrin Xthona, with Alli Cash possibly returning to the fold.

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The Oregon Ducks solidified their status as a school to watch for this season as they sprung senior Edward Cheserek and freshman Katie Rainsberger onto the scene in their season debut cross country races at the Washington Invitational in Seattle, Washington Saturday morning.

Cheserek kicked off his season in style as he was the first to break the tape in 23 minutes, 6.30 seconds on the eight-kilometer route around the Jefferson Park Golf Course – 19 seconds ahead of his nearest competitor.

Though Cheserek had been running with a pack for the most part, he threw in a surge at the last kilometer that no one else could match. This is his 14^th win in his last 16 cross-country races.

To back up Cheserek’s victory, four Oregon runners placed in the top six – Sam Prakel finished third in 23:27.30, Matthew Maton came home in fourth with a time of 23:28.10 and Tanner Anderson crossed the line in sixth place with a time of 23:31.10. Blake Haney, the final member to count towards team points, clocked 23:46.30 to finish 12^th.

This strong finish guided the Ducks, who rank third, to an easy victory of 26 points with plenty of room to spare. Colorado State, ranked 29^th, was second with 39 points. Washington, ranked 21^st, was third with 64 points.

“It was a good team effort,” Oregon associate head coach Andy Powell said in a release. “The guys behind Cheserek, those sophomores (Anderson and Maton) and Sam Prakel did really well. For this time of year, I think we’re in a good spot. There are a few things we need to work on, but we’re healthy and everyone’s racing.”

Oregon has little to worry about should they need a backup plan. Bolstering the team are Bryan Fernandez, who was 13^th in 23:48.30, and Tim Gorman finished 17^th in 24:00.50.

Rainsberger, who was donning an Oregon singlet for the first time, was the runner-up in the women’s category, completing the six-kilometer course in 19:36.80. The 2015 Gatorade National Runner of the year was six seconds behind champion Charlotte Prouse of Washington.

Forty seconds after Rainsberger crossed the line, Jessica Hull led the charge of four Ducks to cross the line within 10 seconds of one another. Hull was 12^th in 20:22.40, Ashley Maton was 13^th in 20:26.10, Emma Abhramson was 14^th in 20:27.80, and Maggie Schmaedick was 16^th in 20:32.20.

The lady Ducks, who rank fourth, ultimately finished second with 57 points. Washington, who ranks 12^th, clinched the team title with 24 points.

“We’re in high-volume training cycle right now and it was a good opportunity to be tough and compete on tired legs,” assistant coach Maurica Powell said. “It’s a challenge to execute a race plan under those circumstances and I think we did a pretty good job of running together. Katie (Rainsberger) had a phenomenal debut for us. She went out conservatively and finished strong. I was really impressed with Jess Hull and Ashley Maton, who have shown some big improvement over last year.”

The Ducks fall training camp looks to be paying off as they have been working on developing a pack-running mentality.

Besides wearing white singlets with the word “Oregon” in pink in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Ducks also dedicated their race to Bryan Fernandez and his father, Juan Fernandez, who passed away last week. Bryan had travelled directly from the memorial service to race in Seattle.

“It was an emotional run for the guys rallying behind Bryan,” Powell said. “For him to come here and run like that – it really inspired a lot of guys around him.”

The Ducks will next race at the Pre-National Invitational at Terre Haute, Indiana, on Oct. 15.

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Going into Thursday night’s match, Oregon head coach Kat Mertz knew that it would be a tough battle against USC, who ranks ninth on the national RPI list and had not let a goal slip by in its last six games.

“It was a coaching stat that we kept to ourselves,” Mertz said.

The Ducks, who ranked 24th entering the match, suffered another setback in a Pac-12 outing when they fell 3-1 to the Trojans in their second match of Pac-12 play Thursday evening at Papé Field.

With the loss, the Ducks are now 0-2 to start their pac-12 schedule.

The first period of the game saw a lot of physicality out on the field, with the Trojans muscling their way to six attempts at a goal. In contrast, Oregon’s sleepy offense only recorded one attempt at the goal. Though the Ducks were close to penning down more attempts, the lack of support as the ball approached the opposite end of the field often led to a change in possession.

“We kind of waited for the ball, and they just ran right through us,” Mertz said.

The Trojans drew first blood when they landed a penalty kick at the 20^th minute.

As the game progressed, the players got visibly more aggressive, which prompted the referee to dole out a yellow card each to USC and Oregon within a span of 20 seconds.

Barely a minute after the second period kicked off, the Trojans scored twice, in the span of no less than 20 seconds, to extend their lead to 3-1. The pressure was on for the Ducks to guide the ball into the net, at least once, for the 443 fans egging them on while braving the continuous cold breeze.

At the 76^th minute, Oregon sophomore forward Taylor Kuroda stepped up to the task and scored off an assist from midfielder Sofia Chambers. The fans’ reaction from the goal was lagged – chaos ensued in the scoring box after midfielder Abby Morrow shot the ball from the corner. Chambers’ header had been deflected, but the ball was bouncing around in the box haphazardly until Kuroda tapped it over the line to score the Ducks’ first goal in the Pac-12 and her first goal of the season. However, the motion had been so quick and minute that the ball remained in play until the referee determined that the Ducks had indeed scored a goal.

“I was really impressed that we were able to get a goal against a really good defensive team,” Mertz said.

The Ducks exit the match with a record of 6-4-1 and registered with 11 shots (six on goal). USC stands at 8-2-0, with 14 shots (four on goal).

Besides being the first home match for the Ducks in the Pac-12 conference, it was also the opening event of the BEOREGON initiative, a partnership between the university and Nike which is a “call to action for all Ducks to be their most authentic selves.” During warmups, the Ducks were decked out in BEOREGON gear which featured The Duck logo on a multi-colored background.

“That’s what we talk about a lot with our team – having a judge-free zone, accepting people for who they are,” Mertz said. “We have 30 amazing young women. For us, it’s about respecting everyone’s story and where they come from. To be able to put this behind BEOREGON and BETRUE is truly a special day for our women’s soccer team.”

A quick turnaround in the schedule will see the Ducks in action on Sunday afternoon against UCLA, who ranks 11^th on the RPI list.

“UCLA has a lot of dangerous players,” Mertz said. “They’re fast. They’re pacey. It will be a different style of soccer. We’re going to have to contain them.”

The Ducks may get a boost to their roster on Sunday – Oregon team captain Caitlyn Wong was seen warming up prior to the game against the Trojans, but she remained on the bench. Mertz said that Wong could be back in action when Oregon plays against UCLA.

“We want her at a 100 percent, not 80 percent,” Mertz said

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While the Oregon soccer team had set out to start its “revolution” this season, it faced a major hurdle in its Pac-12 opening game when it drew Stanford, which tops the NCAA RPI list, as its first opponent. Oregon ranks No. 16 on that list.

On Saturday night in Palo Alto, the Ducks (6-3-1) lost 3-0 to Stanford (8-0-1).

“I am proud of our effort and fight tonight,” said Oregon head coach Kat Mertz in a news release. “The first half, we were able to contain a very good Stanford side, while creating shots and opportunities. We had some bright moments tonight, that we can build off of through Pac-12 play.”

In the first half, the Ducks attempted two shots, were awarded a corner kick, and recorded one save. A minor scare occurred in the 43rd minute when Oregon midfielder Maryn Beutler was issued a yellow card. By halftime, neither side had scored.

Stanford started to ramp up its scoring attack after intermission. In the 63rd minute, Tegan McGrady scored her first goal of the season, firing a shot 25 yards out from the left of the box. Less than three minutes later, Jordan DiBiasi capitalized on an assist from teammates Michelle Xiao and Averie Collins to score her sixth goal of the season. In the 71st minute, Collins landed her first goal of the season when she headed the ball into the net from teammate Andi Sullivan’s free kick.

Oregon ended the game with six shots, three of which were on goal. Stanford tallied 14 shots (seven on goal). Oregon goalie Halla Hinriksdottir finished with four saves.

The Ducks will face off against USC in their first home game against a Pac-12 opponent on Thursday afternoon.

“We’re looking forward to coming back home to protect Papé Field on a quick turnaround against USC,” said Mertz.

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