MEET NOTES
TEMPE – The Sun Devil women's cross country team is chasing history this Veterans Day weekend in Seattle at the NCAA West Regional Championships.
A top-two finish at the regional meet would send the Sun Devils to the NCAA Cross Country Championships as a team for the first time since 2011 and 15th time in school history.
Even without a top-two finish, the Devils could still advance to the final meet of the season in Louisville next weekend if their resume meets the test. With wins this season over several teams ranked in the top-30, and a strong performance in the West Friday among one of the most loaded divisions in the country, ASU's championship dreams could still become a reality.
ASU will be led by Chelsey Albertson who finished 14th at the Pac-12 Championships two weeks ago to earn an all-conference honor in cross country for the first time in her Sun Devil career.
The West Region contains six women's programs ranked in the USTFCCCA top-30 and four ranked in the top-10 alone, including No. 3 Oregon, No. 4 San Francisco, seventh-ranked Stanford and No. 10 Boise State.
A win over any combination of those teams would put the Devils in a good position for an at-large team bid.
Those at-large bids have given the Devils nine of their 13 NCAA Championships appearances since 1998, including in 2011 when ASU finished seventh in the region and went on to finish just outside of the top-30 in the title race.
At last year's regional, the women finished eighth and Albertson took 19th as an individual.
On the men's side, while just one Sun Devil is making the trip to Seattle, that one Devil has been ASU's top-runner all season.
John Reniewicki will seek an individual bid by cracking into a top-25 loaded with talent, expected to be led by Pac-12 champion Grant Fisher of Stanford.
Reniewicki has run with some of the men entered in the race this season, and even just a couple of weeks ago at the Pac-12 Championships. He ran near the front of the pack for the first kilometer of the conference race, but the illness that he had been fighting all week got the best of him as the 8K went on.
Even with Reniewicki and the other athletes' familiarity with each other, the race Friday will be unlike anything they have run to the point in the season.
NCAA Championship races are 10,000 meters, two kilometers more than what most of these athletes have run this year. That additional mile and-a-quarter could have some impact on the men.
Reniewicki, Albertson and the Devils take to the Jefferson Park Golf Course this Friday in Seattle.
Race Day Info
The NCAA West Regional Championships are scheduled to begin Friday at 11:30 a.m. with the women's 6K race that will feature a team of eight Sun Devils, including all-Pac-12 runner Chelsey Albertson.
The men's race will begin at 12:30. It will be the first 10K the Sun Devils have been entered in this fall and John Reniewicki will be the sole ASU representative amongst a stacked field.
FloTrack will be live streaming the races and the stream is available to fans with a valid subscription to the service. Live stats will be provided by Record Timing and can be found on the timing site or on the host site, gohuskies.com.
Only teams that finish first and second will be guaranteed a place in next weekend's NCAA Championships in Louisville, Kentucky. At-large bids are available and given based on resume.
There are four individual places in the national championships available for each region and gender. For an individual to qualify for the championships, one must finish as one of the top-four finishing athletes whose respective teams do not qualify, and the athlete must finish in the top-25 of all runners, which would give them all-region honors.
Results and a full recap of Arizona State's day at the Regional Championships will be available on thesundevils.com following the completion of the races in Seattle.
Coach's Corner – Rasmussen on the Regional Championships
On the goal for the women's team
"The goal doesn't change from the beginning of the year. I think we have an opportunity to go there and, if we put it together, surprise some teams. We haven't been able to 100 percent put it together this year, but everyone right now is healthy, which would be the first time all year that's happened. That in general helps, but I think they're ready to run their best come Friday."
On Reniewicki making the jump to 10K
"I think for him he's good, he's consistent. We'll change the plan up a little bit from what it was at the conference meet, but for him, 2,000 more meters shouldn't be that drastic of a difference. He's put in a good amount of work over the course of the season and has put himself in good positions, so he should be able to go out there and run fine with the additional 2,000 meters."
On qualifying as an individual
"Last year, I think Chelsey was the seventh-best individual finisher [19th overall]. I think you had to be in the top-10 last year to get out of the region as an individual. It's a tough region, there's no doubt about it, and I think our region is a little bit deeper this year, so that helps, but there's still a lot of quality individuals out there, too. There's a chance, though, there's no doubt about it."
Looking Back
While the Devils haven't sent a team to the NCAA Championships since 2011, ASU has had a runner receive all-region honors in every year since their last championship appearance, with Shelby Houlihan finishing in the top-five three times and winning the regional crown once.
Women's Past Results – Regional Championships
Year Team Finish Pts. ASU Highest Finisher Place
2016 8th 266 Chelsey Albertson 19th
2015 8th 243 Samantha Ortega 22nd
2014 8th 215 Shelby Houlihan 1st
2013 6th 175 Shelby Houlihan 2nd
2012 12th 329 Shelby Houlihan 4th
Albertson Takes All-Conference Honor
Chelsey Albertson earned her first all-conference cross country honor Friday at the Pac-12 Cross Country Championships in Springfield, Oregon, when she crossed the line in 14th in a season's best 19:23.6.
The achievement was Arizona State's first all-conference honor since Shelby Houlihan won the individual title in 2014.
Albertson held onto the leaders for the entire race and barely fluctuated in position, between 17th and 14th, through the second and fourth splits. Even as the pace quickened and the lead pack of three runners started to break away, Albertson remained composed and managed to take the final all-conference place.
ASU's No. 2 was Alexis Nichols, who ran her best 6K of the season to finish 58th. The time was nearly two minutes better than what she ran at her last outing in Louisville two weeks ago.
Samantha Ortega and 2017 ASU Cross Country Invitational champion Courtney Lewis finished 60th and 61st, respectively, and ASU closed the book on its scoring just eight seconds later when Daan Haven crossed the line in 67th.
Overall, the Devils finished ninth with 232 points. The result saw the Devils drop the women's cross country Territorial Cup point as the Wildcats took seventh as a team.
The Pac-12 women's team title was won by Colorado, and CU's Dani Jones won the individual title.
In the men's championship race, ASU finished ninth as well with 282 points.
John Reniewicki was the top-finisher once again for the Devils. He started out fast and was near the leaders through the first 800 meters of the meandering course.
Reniewicki finished 66th, and Erik Gonzalez took 72nd to finish as the Sun Devils' No. 2 runner for the first time this season, and score for the fifth consecutive race.
J.P. Nelson bounced back after pulling up at last weekend's regular season finale to take 76th in Springfield. Alexander Stevens and Michael Renner wrapped up the scoring in 77th and 78th, respectively.
Arizona finished eighth to take the Territorial Cup point.
The men of Stanford broke Colorado's six-year conference title win-streak, and the Cardinal's Grant Fisher won the individual title.
Sun Devil Entries – Regional Championships
Men: John Reniewicki
Women: Chelsey Albertson, Billie Jo Dytrt, Daan Haven, Courtney Lewis, Alexis Nichols, Samantha Ortega, Anna Pruter, Angela Saitta
Sun Devil Women No. 9 Heading into Regional
Not much change has happened in the NCAA's West Region as the regional championship approaches.
The Sun Devils have held firm at No. 9 among the region, sitting behind six squads in the USTFCCCA top-30 and an Arizona team and a UCLA squad that have consistently been gaining ground on the top-six.
The region's top-five has remained the same, but the order has shifted thanks to a strong performance from Stanford at the Pac-12 Championships that pushed San Francisco, Boise State and Washington all down a place.
On the men's side, the Sun Devils haven't been able to reclaim their spot in the top-15, and likely will end the season outside the top-15 with their squad sitting out the regional meet.
John Reniewicki, though, still has a chance to put the Devils into the regional and national spotlight if he can grab a place in the NCAA Championships with a solid finish Friday.
TEMPE – The Sun Devil women's cross country team is chasing history this Veterans Day weekend in Seattle at the NCAA West Regional Championships.
A top-two finish at the regional meet would send the Sun Devils to the NCAA Cross Country Championships as a team for the first time since 2011 and 15th time in school history.
Even without a top-two finish, the Devils could still advance to the final meet of the season in Louisville next weekend if their resume meets the test. With wins this season over several teams ranked in the top-30, and a strong performance in the West Friday among one of the most loaded divisions in the country, ASU's championship dreams could still become a reality.
ASU will be led by Chelsey Albertson who finished 14th at the Pac-12 Championships two weeks ago to earn an all-conference honor in cross country for the first time in her Sun Devil career.
The West Region contains six women's programs ranked in the USTFCCCA top-30 and four ranked in the top-10 alone, including No. 3 Oregon, No. 4 San Francisco, seventh-ranked Stanford and No. 10 Boise State.
A win over any combination of those teams would put the Devils in a good position for an at-large team bid.
Those at-large bids have given the Devils nine of their 13 NCAA Championships appearances since 1998, including in 2011 when ASU finished seventh in the region and went on to finish just outside of the top-30 in the title race.
At last year's regional, the women finished eighth and Albertson took 19th as an individual.
On the men's side, while just one Sun Devil is making the trip to Seattle, that one Devil has been ASU's top-runner all season.
John Reniewicki will seek an individual bid by cracking into a top-25 loaded with talent, expected to be led by Pac-12 champion Grant Fisher of Stanford.
Reniewicki has run with some of the men entered in the race this season, and even just a couple of weeks ago at the Pac-12 Championships. He ran near the front of the pack for the first kilometer of the conference race, but the illness that he had been fighting all week got the best of him as the 8K went on.
Even with Reniewicki and the other athletes' familiarity with each other, the race Friday will be unlike anything they have run to the point in the season.
NCAA Championship races are 10,000 meters, two kilometers more than what most of these athletes have run this year. That additional mile and-a-quarter could have some impact on the men.
Reniewicki, Albertson and the Devils take to the Jefferson Park Golf Course this Friday in Seattle.
Race Day Info
The NCAA West Regional Championships are scheduled to begin Friday at 11:30 a.m. with the women's 6K race that will feature a team of eight Sun Devils, including all-Pac-12 runner Chelsey Albertson.
The men's race will begin at 12:30. It will be the first 10K the Sun Devils have been entered in this fall and John Reniewicki will be the sole ASU representative amongst a stacked field.
FloTrack will be live streaming the races and the stream is available to fans with a valid subscription to the service. Live stats will be provided by Record Timing and can be found on the timing site or on the host site, gohuskies.com.
Only teams that finish first and second will be guaranteed a place in next weekend's NCAA Championships in Louisville, Kentucky. At-large bids are available and given based on resume.
There are four individual places in the national championships available for each region and gender. For an individual to qualify for the championships, one must finish as one of the top-four finishing athletes whose respective teams do not qualify, and the athlete must finish in the top-25 of all runners, which would give them all-region honors.
Results and a full recap of Arizona State's day at the Regional Championships will be available on thesundevils.com following the completion of the races in Seattle.
Coach's Corner – Rasmussen on the Regional Championships
On the goal for the women's team
"The goal doesn't change from the beginning of the year. I think we have an opportunity to go there and, if we put it together, surprise some teams. We haven't been able to 100 percent put it together this year, but everyone right now is healthy, which would be the first time all year that's happened. That in general helps, but I think they're ready to run their best come Friday."
On Reniewicki making the jump to 10K
"I think for him he's good, he's consistent. We'll change the plan up a little bit from what it was at the conference meet, but for him, 2,000 more meters shouldn't be that drastic of a difference. He's put in a good amount of work over the course of the season and has put himself in good positions, so he should be able to go out there and run fine with the additional 2,000 meters."
On qualifying as an individual
"Last year, I think Chelsey was the seventh-best individual finisher [19th overall]. I think you had to be in the top-10 last year to get out of the region as an individual. It's a tough region, there's no doubt about it, and I think our region is a little bit deeper this year, so that helps, but there's still a lot of quality individuals out there, too. There's a chance, though, there's no doubt about it."
Looking Back
While the Devils haven't sent a team to the NCAA Championships since 2011, ASU has had a runner receive all-region honors in every year since their last championship appearance, with Shelby Houlihan finishing in the top-five three times and winning the regional crown once.
Women's Past Results – Regional Championships
Year Team Finish Pts. ASU Highest Finisher Place
2016 8th 266 Chelsey Albertson 19th
2015 8th 243 Samantha Ortega 22nd
2014 8th 215 Shelby Houlihan 1st
2013 6th 175 Shelby Houlihan 2nd
2012 12th 329 Shelby Houlihan 4th
Albertson Takes All-Conference Honor
Chelsey Albertson earned her first all-conference cross country honor Friday at the Pac-12 Cross Country Championships in Springfield, Oregon, when she crossed the line in 14th in a season's best 19:23.6.
The achievement was Arizona State's first all-conference honor since Shelby Houlihan won the individual title in 2014.
Albertson held onto the leaders for the entire race and barely fluctuated in position, between 17th and 14th, through the second and fourth splits. Even as the pace quickened and the lead pack of three runners started to break away, Albertson remained composed and managed to take the final all-conference place.
ASU's No. 2 was Alexis Nichols, who ran her best 6K of the season to finish 58th. The time was nearly two minutes better than what she ran at her last outing in Louisville two weeks ago.
Samantha Ortega and 2017 ASU Cross Country Invitational champion Courtney Lewis finished 60th and 61st, respectively, and ASU closed the book on its scoring just eight seconds later when Daan Haven crossed the line in 67th.
Overall, the Devils finished ninth with 232 points. The result saw the Devils drop the women's cross country Territorial Cup point as the Wildcats took seventh as a team.
The Pac-12 women's team title was won by Colorado, and CU's Dani Jones won the individual title.
In the men's championship race, ASU finished ninth as well with 282 points.
John Reniewicki was the top-finisher once again for the Devils. He started out fast and was near the leaders through the first 800 meters of the meandering course.
Reniewicki finished 66th, and Erik Gonzalez took 72nd to finish as the Sun Devils' No. 2 runner for the first time this season, and score for the fifth consecutive race.
J.P. Nelson bounced back after pulling up at last weekend's regular season finale to take 76th in Springfield. Alexander Stevens and Michael Renner wrapped up the scoring in 77th and 78th, respectively.
Arizona finished eighth to take the Territorial Cup point.
The men of Stanford broke Colorado's six-year conference title win-streak, and the Cardinal's Grant Fisher won the individual title.
Sun Devil Entries – Regional Championships
Men: John Reniewicki
Women: Chelsey Albertson, Billie Jo Dytrt, Daan Haven, Courtney Lewis, Alexis Nichols, Samantha Ortega, Anna Pruter, Angela Saitta
Sun Devil Women No. 9 Heading into Regional
Not much change has happened in the NCAA's West Region as the regional championship approaches.
The Sun Devils have held firm at No. 9 among the region, sitting behind six squads in the USTFCCCA top-30 and an Arizona team and a UCLA squad that have consistently been gaining ground on the top-six.
The region's top-five has remained the same, but the order has shifted thanks to a strong performance from Stanford at the Pac-12 Championships that pushed San Francisco, Boise State and Washington all down a place.
On the men's side, the Sun Devils haven't been able to reclaim their spot in the top-15, and likely will end the season outside the top-15 with their squad sitting out the regional meet.
John Reniewicki, though, still has a chance to put the Devils into the regional and national spotlight if he can grab a place in the NCAA Championships with a solid finish Friday.