49ers Head to Big West Championships

49ers Head to Big West Championships
Long Beach State Looks to Continue Improvements at Conference Championships

October 26, 2006

LONG BEACH, CA -- The Long Beach State cross country teams will head to San Luis Obispo this Saturday for the Big West Championships at Fairbanks Course with the women’s 6K starting at 10 am followed by the men’s 8K at 10:45 am.

Last year the women finished third with a school-record 75 points. Returnees Meredith Kramon and Nicole Blalock both earned all-conference honors in 2005, only the fourth time in school history LBSU has achieved two all-BWC accolades. With an extremely talented group of seniors in Kramon, Blalock, Jenessa Botello and Ludi Valdez, the women are expecting to be just as successful in 2006.

“We are running at a level right now that our program has not been at before and our group is excited about the challenge on Saturday,” said third-year Distance Coach Matt Roe. “I am confident that we will earn a result that we are proud of.”

The 49ers will definitely be facing a challenge this weekend. The Big West schools have proved to be very strong this year, especially with UC Santa Barbara, who is ranked seventh nationally.

“UCSB is simply the most complete team in conference history and they would have to stumble to allow anyone else to take the title,” said third-year Distance Coach Matt Roe. “It is looking to be a three team race for second place between UC Irvine, UC Riverside and ourselves.”

The men also finished third at the BWC in 2005, but lost two of their top runners to graduation. The 49ers have had to work hard to fill those spots but will look to Wolhan Ovalle to lead the way on Saturday. Ovalle finished 18th at the Championships last year and currently ranks third all-time in the 8K at LBSU.

“We scaled back our racing and trained all out to be in a position to be competitive,” said Roe. The guys have done an awesome job
of utilizing every day to the best of their ability and I believe we will have an impressive team race this weekend.”

With the best-combined finish in school-history at the Big West Championships last year, the 49ers are looking to continue to take strides forward on Saturday.

Long Beach State University Athletics

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