Long Beach State University Athletics
49er Women Third, Men Fifth in Pre-Season Poll
8/17/2006 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
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Coaches Make Their Picks for the Season IRVINE, CA-- The Big West Conference coaches made their picks for the 2006 season, and the Long Beach State's women's cross country team is picked to finish third, while the men are slated for fifth place. The women's team returns four runners which rank in the top-10 in school-history in the 6K in Meredith Kramon, Nicole Blalock, Vanessa Botello and Ludi Valdez. This is one of the program's stronger teams, as it would be a contender to win the conference in most years, if not for the nationally-ranked season expected from pre-season favorite UC Santa Barbara. Kramon and Blalock were each named All-Big West last season. On the men's side senior Wolhan Ovalle, who posts a top-10 8K mark himself, gets his chance to be the team's No.1 runner, after racing behind all-conference performers Jimmy Grabow and Terrance Wroblewski for each of the past two seasons. With the graduation of the team's top two runners, including Grabow, one of the school's best of all-time, Ovalle and sophomore Dylan Jaedtke are expected to take over the reigns. Cal Poly was the unanimous favorite to win the conference. Last year the program was arguably the most improved team in the nation by each finishing 10th at the NCAA Regional and third at the conference championship. The regional finish was the best finish since the early 1990's and the conference standing was the second-best combined finish in school-history. The 49ers report to campus the week of August 21 and have their first meet September 2 at CS Fullerton. The women's team will also compete at the NCAA Pre-National meet on October 14 for the second-straight year. This year's conference championships are at Cal Poly, while the NCAA Regionals are at Distance Coach Matt Roe's alma mater, Portland, on November 11. MEN'S PRE-SEASON POLL WOMEN'S PRE-SEASON POLL |
