Kechris will lead squad at Stanford tourney

Published: Friday, October 31, 1997

Friday, October 31, 1997

WOMENS CROSS-COUNRTY: Team to go into Pac-10 without Mortesen, but with high hopes

By Jared Hummel

Daily Bruin Contributor

As an up-and-down regular season moves into the postseason, the UCLA women's cross-country team hopes to improve upon last year's fourth place finish when it travels to Stanford for the Pac-10 Championships on Saturday.

The tournament boasts a competitive slate of teams, fielding four of the nation's top 14.

In addition to 13th-ranked UCLA, the meet will feature defending conference and national champion Stanford, currently ranked No. 1; fourth-ranked Oregon, and No. 14 Washington.

Stanford won last year's meet with 38 team points, followed by Washington (82), Arizona (92), UCLA (116) and Oregon (126).

Arizona junior Amy Skieresz won last year's individual crown for the second year in a row with a course record time of 16:36. Skieresz is favored to win her third individual championship on Saturday - if successful, she will be the first woman to complete it.

The loss of top UCLA runner Kim Mortensen (out for the season with a stress fracture of the sacrum) will make Skieresz's task a lot easier. Mortensen trailed Skieresz by 18 seconds in last year's competition.

Leading a UCLA team, composed of mostly underclassmen on Saturday, will be senior Katherina Kechris. She led all Bruins at the Oregon Invitational two weeks ago placing ninth overall en route to a second place team finish.

Kechris has been the quiet, model of consistency on this Bruin squad and has taken the brunt of the responsibility left behind with Mortensen's absence. It would have been easy to lose faith in the season when the team's lead runner went down for the season. Instead, Kechris was more than up for the challenge to take over as team leader.

"I feel totally comfortable with it ... I know what to expect," Kechris said. "There's a pressure to it, but it makes you feel important."

Head Coach Eric Peterson is confident, as he has been all season, about his team's chances against the likes of powerhouses Stanford and Oregon.

"We ran a strong team race at Oregon," Peterson said. "We need to do the same thing at the Pac-10 and at the regional meet in Tucson. We miss the front-running status of Kim (Mortensen), but this is still a good team that has a chance to do well at the conference and regional levels."

Faced with the challenge of a rough Pac-10 Championship lineup will be true freshmen Katie Nuanes and Julie Ott, who Peterson has been raving about all season - citing their maturity as most impressive. Ott led the team at the NCAA Preview Meet, finishing 39th overall.

Accompanying Ott and Nuanes will be redshirt freshman Kelly Cohn and sophomores Christina Bowen, Melinda George and Bethany Lucas.