Oct. 17, 2009
2009 Bronco Invite Results
FLOTRACK Interview with Reid:
FLOTRACK Interview with Wilson:
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - The Santa Clara men's and
women's cross country teams competed well today in the Bronco
Invitational at Baylands Park in Sunnyvale, with the men taking
fourth as a team and the women seventh, while two individual Bronco
runners led the field in their respective race.
"This is our best finish ever at the Bronco Invitational by two
individuals," said Bronco head coach Tom Service. "We had 100
people after our post-race bar-b-que with so many alums helping us
in the shoot. It was really cool. Overall we were extremely happy
with today," said Service. "We had the most teams and participants
ever in the history of the race, the teams seemed to like the
course, and the times were very fast. We felt it was a very
successful day and this is sort of our keynote event with many
parents and alumni in attendance. The most important competition is
WCC and regionals, but from a Santa Clara family standpoint this is
our event. It was tremendous."
The women were the first to run and were paced by junior Stephanie
Wilson, who was the top collegiate woman to finish and was only
defeated by Lauren Weaver (a graduate and former member of the
Belmont University cross-country team). Wilson's time of 16:53
smashed her personal best time by more than a minute.
"I felt pretty good the whole race and tried to run really
confident," said Wilson. "The first mile was run on tempo, the
second I worked to keep up the pace and the third mile I tried not
to slow down and stay ahead of the pack. I worked to finish really
hard and gave it all I could. My goal today was to break 17 minutes
and I knew I had to hit the first split at about 5:25, the second
around 10:50 and then stay confident the rest of the way."
"Both Stephanie and Lauren Weaver broke the course record today
by more than 10 seconds" said head coach Tom Service. "Stephanie
ran right on our race plan and did everything she could out there.
She led the race the entire way and then was passed with about 600
meters to go."
Freshman Mary
Reynolds was the second Bronco to cross the line, finishing
with a time of 17:56. "I was really excited for Mary," said
Service. "She ran under 18 minutes today for the first time as a
freshman and that was really exciting to see."
Santa Clara finished with 207 points. Winner New Mexico State
had 49, second-place San Francisco had 89, and third-place Long
Beach State had 104.
On the men's side, Robbie Reid won his first
8k race of the year, coming in one second ahead of Fresno State's
Paul Zwama. Reid finished with a time of 24:32.
"We do workouts here all the time and we know the splits and
mile marks, so today my focus was on competing and racing," said
Reid. "Our biggest races are conference and regionals and those are
tough courses where it's hard to keep a fast pace. Today I just
wanted to get a feel for racing and not worry about time. I wish my
time was a little faster that what it was, but it's a strategic
race that just boiled down to competitiveness. It was good to win
so I can't be too unhappy with today."
"We talked about not worrying about how fast his time was and
actually he went out slower than we thought he would," said
associate head coach Felipe Montoro. "He
stayed controlled and relaxed, and we planned for him to not take
the lead, hold on `til the end and bust for a finish, and he did
just that."
Chris
Sampson followed Reid in 19th place, 15th out of the
collegians, and Santa Clara earned 132 points. Winner Long Beach
State had 69 points, runner-up Fresno State had 72, and third-place
Boise State had 126.
"I was very pleased with our guys," added Montoro. "It was our
best race of the season by far and it's exactly what we were
looking for heading into WCCs and regionals."
"We couldn't have been any better up front," said Service.
"Stephanie was beat by national caliber runner who's not a
collegian anymore, and Robbie beat a very strong men's field. The
guys finished fourth which is much higher than we expected and the
women, who finished seventh are very young and were still counting
on a lot of freshman and I think they've done a good job stepping
up."
The Broncos will compete in their final race before the WCC
Championships, the Shoreline Open, in Mountain View, Calif. next
Saturday, Oct. 24.
