Oct. 31, 2008
SPRINGFIELD, Ore. - Kari Hardt and Ali Kielty finished ninth and 10th, respectively, to lead the Arizona State University women's cross country team to a fourth-place finish at the 2008 Pac-10 Championships hosted by Oregon at the Springfield Country Club in Springfield, Ore., Friday afternoon, while Patrick Milloy set the pace for the men's eighth-place team finisher as he crossed the line in 28th place.
No. 1 Washington won the women's race with a sweep of the Top 6 placers and a score of 15 points while No. 2 Oregon (55), No. 18 Stanford (99) and No. 15 ASU (105) rounded out the Top 4 in the team standings. UW's win broke SU's streak of 12 wins in a row at the Pac-10 level while the Sun Devil women recorded the 10th-best team score at the Pac-10 meet in program history. The host and top-ranked Ducks won the men's race with 28 points and was followed in the Top 5 by No. 2 Stanford (47), No. 24 California and No. 24 Washington (tied for third with 104) and No. 13 UCLA (106). The Sun Devils scored 198 points to finish eighth.
Hardt and Kielty, both of whom earned Second Team All-Pac-10 honors by virtue of their overall finish in the race, clocked in at 20:26.57 and 20:26.96, respectively. Hardt's time ranks as the 18th-fastest in course history while Kielty was just behind her with the 19th-best. The team's Top 5 scorers in the 6,000m race were rounded out by Jenna Kingma (24th in 20:53.16), Haley Paul (30th in 21:06.86) and Camille Olson (38th in 21:21.57). Also running for the Sun Devils in the race were Angela Spadafino (39th in 21:21.68), Lindsay Prescott (45th in 21:27.21), Sunni Olding (47th in 21:33.01) and Kauren Tarver (71st in 22:13.66).
Milloy covered the 8,000m course in 24:32.61 to finish 28th while Noah Shannon was 40th in 24:54.80. David Mehlhorn was third on the team in 47th (25:05.61) before a trio of teammates crossed in succession, including the remaining two team scorers in Santos Castro (50th in 25:15.81) and Ben Engelhardt (51st in 25:17.48), and Dylan Hatcher (52nd in 25:17.66). The remaining Sun Devils that competed included Daniel Lovell (62nd in 25:30.01), Nectaly Barbosa (66th in 25:44.17), Thomas Petersen (70th in 25:52.58) and Collin Eckelman (74th in 26:04.66).
The Sun Devils will next compete at the 2008 NCAA West Region Championships on November 15 at the Stanford Country Club in Palo Alto, Calif., with the Top 2 teams in each race earning an automatic berth to the NCAA Championships later in the month.