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Cross Country Gears Up for West Coast Conference Championships
Oct. 30, 2009
San Francisco men's and women's cross country are set to compete in the 2009 West Coast Conference Championships at Crystal Springs cross country course on Saturday. The men take the starting line at 9:00 AM and the women race at 9:45 AM.
Men's 8k: Last season, the men took 3rd behind a strong second place finish by then freshman Ganbileg Bor. It will be another tough race, as the Portland men's team is ranked No. 8 nationally. Seven men will compete for the Dons, but 10 are ready to start. Those listed as possible competitors for USF on Saturday are senior Alex Nelson, juniors Ravi Amarawansa, and Josh Horeled, sophomores Tyler Alvarez, Ganbileg Bor, Thomas Estrada, Jeremy Grace, Devin Hopkins, and Will Marquardt, and freshman Adrian Rafiee.
"We are looking forward to going to head to head with conference teams on Saturday," said head coach Helen Lehman-Winters. "We have ten men ready to go for Saturday, however, we can only run seven. We will put our best conference team together and then be ready to potentially run some fresh guys at the NCAA Regional meet in mid November."
Women's 6k: Last year, USF took a fourth place finish, with the help of a fourth place showing from departed senior Michelle Born. Portland is the defending champion, but USF defeated them at the Dellinger Invite earlier this month. Also looking to be tough competition is Loyola Marymount, who is ranked No. 7 in the western region. This season the Dons will run a relatively young team, with junior Nicole Bowler and sophomore Hillary Kigar the only returners running the race. Five freshman, including Eva Krchova, who has led the Dons in numerous meets this season, will fill out the team. The four remaining freshmen are Alice Baker, Sophie Curl, Hayley Niles, and Heather Zytkewicz.
"We are excited to have five freshmen on the starting line in the WCC Championships," said Lehman-Winters. "This is a special group and we have excellent leadership in both Bowler and Kigar so we are looking forward to battling for USF's first WCC cross country title. There really is no 'favorite team' so it comes down to who shows up ready to compete on Saturday."
The men's and women's course maps are listed above, as is directions to Crystal Springs.
Check out the tournament central page: http://wccsports.cstv.com/ot/09-wcc-xc-tourney-central.html































