Cross Country Heads to Stanford Invitational
9/22/2011 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
Sept. 22, 2011
MALIBU, Calif. - With two meets now under their belts, the Pepperdine men's and women's cross country teams head out of Southern California for the first time to run at the Stanford Invitational this Saturday (Sept. 24).
STANFORD INVITATIONAL - The Waves will compete in the men's 8k race at 10:50 a.m. and the women's 6k race at 11:30 a.m. The meet will be held at the Stanford University Golf Course in Palo Alto, Calif. It's Pepperdine's first trip to this meet since 2008. There are also 12 high school races, so more than 4,000 runners will be in action over the course of Saturday's event.
RADNOTI SAYS - Pepperdine sixth-year head coach Robert Radnoti on:
This week's race: "This is our first real big test. It's on their golf course. What makes it extra special this year is it's the site of the regional championship. Hopefully we're going to be qualifying and going to that meet after our conference championships. It's an opportunity for all of our athletes to take a look at the course. We'll be running with some of the top athletes in the nation."
On Lauren Lodge: "It's going to be the debut for Lauren, she's our top runner coming back. She's excited to be able to put her injury from the past spring aside. Since this is her first race we'll probably be kind of cautious. She might run with Anesha Lawrence, who has emerged as our top runner so far this year. In practices they've run together quite a bit. She'll try to pull Aneasha along and make her a strong candidate for All-WCC. Lauren's been doing that very nicely. We'll be cautious this meet and in three weeks when we go back north to Santa Clara, where Lauren is the defending champion, we'll probably let her loose there."
On preparing for the meet: "It's gone really well. This is where we want to get to, where we take two or three weeks between races and really optimizing our training so we're focused on competitions, especially during championship season when it counts."
LAST MEET - Aneasha Lawrence (Sun Valley, Calif./Village Christian HS) and Kenny Smith (Willits, Calif./Willits HS) ran strong races again to lead their respective women's and men's teams when the Waves were in action at the Asics/UC Irvine Invitational on Sept. 10.
Lawrence and Smith each won their races at the season-opening Malibu Oceanside Open nine days ago, but this was the Waves' first test against a large field of runners. On the women's side, Lawrence took 13th place with a time of 18:11.9 on the 5k course. She finished just 13 seconds out of the top 10. For the men, Smith came in 24th place and completed the 8k course in 25:56.4. He finished among a large pack of runners and was just nine seconds away from a spot in the top 20 and 18 seconds out of the top 10.
Behind Lawrence, the next three women's finishers for Pepperdine posted big improvements over their times at the 2010 event. Sophomore Adrianna Davies (Coronado, Calif./Coronado HS) bettered her time by 42 seconds, senior Paige Mobley (Murrieta, Calif./Murrieta Valley HS) was improved by 52 seconds and senior Courtney Rolando (Longmont, Colo./Silver Creek HS) was quicker by more than two minutes. Pepperdine's #2 men's runner, sophomore Jesse Aston (Martinez, Calif./Alhambra HS), showed an improvement of more than three minutes over his 2010 time at UC Irvine.
Cal Poly won the women's race (Pepperdine was eighth), while Cal State San Marcos won the men's race (Pepperdine was 11th).
LODGE - Pepperdine's top returner is senior Lauren Lodge (Hopkinton, Mass./Hopkinton HS), though she sat out the first two meets while recovering from a leg injury. Lodge finished in fifth place at the 2010 WCC Championships, which led to All-WCC first team honors. She was the winner at the 2009 Malibu Oceanside Open and the 2010 Santa Clara Bronco Invitational. In track, she is the Waves' school-record holder in the 1,500, 3,000 and 5,000 meters and the steeplechase.
EXPERIENCE - Pepperdine's women's roster has nine returners (seven of whom are seniors), while the men's roster has six returners (two of whom are seniors).
ACADEMICS - Pepperdine's cross country program is perhaps the school's most accomplished in the classroom. In the 2010-11 school year, 22 student-athletes (those with grade-point averages above a 3.0) were named to the WCC Commissioner's Honor Roll, and 10 of them collected WCC All-Academic awards.
ABOUT PEPPERDINE - Pepperdine boasts a one-of-a-kind athletic department with unprecedented success for a school of its size. The Waves have won NCAA Division I championships in five different men's sports - one of just 16 schools to have accomplished this feat - and nine overall. Of this elite group, Pepperdine has the smallest enrollment and is the only school not in a major conference. Located in scenic Malibu, Calif., the university overlooks the Pacific Ocean and its campus and athletic facilities are regularly voted among the nation's most beautiful. Pepperdine, which is affiliated with the Church of Christ, ranks #55 overall on U.S. News and World Report's list of America's best colleges. The 2011-12 school year marks Pepperdine's 75th anniversary.
Players Mentioned
