Nine members of the ASU cross-country team will be competing on Thursday morning in the Mesa T-Bird Classic.
The race will feature some local community colleges and will provide some ASU runners a chance to get some race experience and possibly earn one of the final spots open for the Pac-10 Championships next week.
“It’s a good marker for us because we have an expanded roster going into Pac-10s, so we can race nine at the conference meet,” ASU coach Louie Quintana said. “Not that this race determines a run-off or anything like that for the final spots, but it gives me an opportunity to evaluate truly in a race setting where some of our kids are at this time of year.”
ASU will only be running four men, not enough to qualify for a team score. But with potentially one open spot for the Pac-10 Championships next week, each of the individual runners will try to impress.
Junior Ben Jankunas, sophomore Cam Liston, junior Collin Eckelman and redshirt freshman Matt Boughton will be the runners. The four of them most recently ran at the ASU Invitational on Oct 2.
Five women will be running for ASU, enough to get a team score, and more spots are on the line for the Pac-10 meet next week.
“For the women, we could have as many as three spots open up,” Quintana said. “If someone really jumps out on Thursday and races well, they’re really going to put themselves in consideration to run next week.”
Running for the women will be redshirt freshman Courtney Golden, senior Rebecca Greenwald, redshirt freshman Catherine Loden, junior Brianna Smith and sophomore Maureen Stringham. All of them last ran on Oct. 2 at the ASU Invitational as well, with Smith being ASU’s top finisher.
Reach the reporter at kyle.glaser@asu.edu.
