Oct. 13, 2007
Results: NCAA Pre-National (pdf) | Canyon West Classic
TEMPE, Ariz. - The Arizona State University cross country team turned in a pair of strong showings at the NCAA Pre-National Meet in Terre Haute, Ind., Saturday afternoon with the No. 6 Sun Devil women placing second and the No. 20 men finishing ninth overall. The meet featured many of the top teams in the nation competing on the same course that will be used for the 2007 NCAA Championships on Nov. 19.
The women scored 171 points to take second in the 35-team `white' race with No. 8 Princeton winning the team title with 149 points. Finishing behind the Sun Devils were No. 13 Michigan (third with 173 points), No. 12 Washington (fourth with 187), No. 10 Illinois (fifth with 189) and No. 2 Colorado (sixth with 231).
The ASU men, ranked tied for 20th in the national polls, scored 305 points to place ninth and finished ahead of one team ranked higher than itself as No. 16 William & Mary placed 11th overall. No. 20 UTEP won the race with 129 points and was followed in the Top 5 by No. 3 Colorado (155 points), No. 10 North Carolina State (182), No. 18 Michigan (208) and No. 7 Notre Dame (261). A total of 40 teams ran in the men's `white' race.
Individually, Jenna Kingma paced the women as she place ninth overall in the 6,000m race, running the course in 20:26.9. She was followed by Kari Hardt (21st in 20:50.5), Ali Kielty (32nd in 21:00.2), Camille Olson (44th in 21:09.4) and Krystal Duke (65th in 21:23.4) in the Top 5 scoring places. Olson, a true freshman, was competing in her first varsity race for the Sun Devils after opening her collegiate career last week as an unattached athlete at the ASU Invitational. Also competing for the Sun Devils in the meet were Cassie Bando (103rd in 21:48.0) and Whitney Lemieux (127th in 22:04.0).
On the men's side, Kyle Alcorn paced the Sun Devils as he placed 19th overall in 23:44.6 on the 8,000m course. Jeff Helmer followed behind in 52nd place (24:05.2) with Ben Engelhardt (69th in 24:15.1), Joey Heller (77th in 24:17.6) and Mikias Gelagle (88th in 24:23.9) in the scoring Top 5. Alonso Contreras placed 114th in 24:36.6 and Garrett Kelly took 187th in 25:25.1 to round out the seven competitors in the race for ASU.
Back in Tempe, a pair of men competed for ASU in the Canyon West Classic at Kiwanis Park while several others ran as unattached athletes in the meet. For the Sun Devils, David Mehlhorn clocked in at 25:18.5 to placed fourth in the University/Open Division while Shane Snyder placed 10th overall at 26:08.6. In the same race, the course record was broken as Dine College's Jacob Kirwa won in 23:25.6 while Tyson David of Central Arizona also beat the previous record with his runner-up time of 23:40.3.
After a weekend off from competition next week, the Sun Devils will enter the championship portion of their schedule when the team heads to Corvallis, Ore., for the 2007 Pac-10 Cross Country Championships.