ALEXIS SEBRING
Sports Assistant
Pepperdine’s cross country runners rushed to the finish line at Alumni Park Saturday. However, they did not quite beat their dual meet competitors from Loyola Marymount, with the men finishing 17-45 and the women keeping it close at 25-31.
This meet lacked the top runners from Pepperdine, but that didn’t stop sophomores Chelsea Wishard and Seth Allison from keeping a strong pace and leading their team. Wishard finished with a time of 18:51, just two seconds ahead of freshman Lauren Lodge.
“Lauren actually led most of the race,” said Head Coach Robert Radnoti. “Chelsea is very conservative in the beginning and picks up the pace toward the end. It was exciting to go one-two in the women’s race.”
The Lions’ Brienna Delaney took third place, stealing the win Pepperdine would have achieved had a Wave placed third. However, this didn’t discourage the team.
“We did great; it was the first meet of the season,” Radnoti said. “Some of our top runners weren’t running, but it was really nice to see most of our freshmen run the course and have a good experience. It sets us up nicely for the season.”
Allison led the men’s team most of the way, but allowed five Loyola runners to sprint across the finish line in front of him. Even though Loyola’s men came out on top, Allison and many other runners improved by 30 seconds from the last time they raced on the course. His time was 16 minutes.
“Next time I run will be a completely different race,” he said. “I’ll have more of my teammates running up there with me.”
Sophomore David Williams finished with a time of 16:11 and reflected on one of the more difficult areas of the course.
“The SLO hill, the hill on the side of the tennis courts, was the most difficult part,” Williams said. “I felt pretty good up to that point. Coming up to the hill, I was right behind the main group, and then I ran out of gas coming up that hill. They had a gap on me and I had about a half a mile to go, but they were able to beat me.”
Five of LMU’s men — Thomas Finnigan, Trevor Wiseman, Brian McDonald, Connor Pastoor and Phillip Benavides — tied at the finish line, destroying Pepperdine’s chance to win. Allison finished sixth, and freshman Jimmy Kelley finished eighth. Despite the loss, the team is looking forward to its next meet, which will be at UC Irvine.
“This is going to be our first real meet,” Williams said. “The last one was almost a practice run, because it was only one team. It was just to see where people are at. We didn’t race all of our top guys. This will probably be our first meet with our full squad.”
The Waves will hit the road for their next meet, the UC Irvine Invitational, on Saturday at 9 a.m.
09-04-2008
