While this weekend may have had most folks thinking ahead to the holiday rituals on the horizon, junior runner Christine Hoffman was focused on keeping a different kind of tradition alive: earning individual all-region honors. This marked the third consecutive season an Aggie has brought home all-region honors. Hoffman’s success in the NCAA Cross Country West Regional, hosted last Friday at the Stanford golf course, helped contribute to the team’s overall 11th place finish.
Leading the Aggies on the women’s side was Hoffman, with a time of 20:54.4 and a 23rd place finish. Sophomore Clara MacLeod finished 47th, followed by Senior Raquel Lambin (67th), junior Erika Barr (77th) and sophomores Rianna Goins (109th), Hannah Kirkegaard (142nd) and Olivia Goins (192nd)
Notably, the women’s 11th place overall made them the top Big West finisher at the meet. Oregon State swept the competition for both the men and the women, finishing with just 88 points on the women’s side and 60 points on the men’s side. On the women’s side, Boise State and Stanford both trailed Oregon State with 103 points each, while Portland followed Oregon State more closely on the men’s side, finishing 2nd with 71 points.
The UC Davis men’s cross-country team suffered from the loss of one of their top runners, junior Brandon Pugh, who was forced to retire after the third mile following an injury from a collision with another runner in warm-up. Pugh finished 34th at this event last year, and was likely to have contributed greatly to the team’s success again this year.
Junior Amar Dholakia (31:10.7) and sophomore Austin Goins (31:16.5) led the Aggies fiercely in Pugh’s absence, pulling off 86th and 92nd place finishes in the men’s 10k. Junior Nick Ratto fell just out of the top 100, with a time of 31:29.3, putting him in 105th place. Juniors Cody Nguyen (122nd), Miguel Aceyes (170th) and Jordon Rushing (185th) also ran hard, contributing to UC Davis’ overall 18th place finish for the weekend. The Aggies finished as the fourth-place Big West school, topped only by UC Riverside (15th), Cal Poly (12th) and UC Santa Barbara (7th).
After taking 11th and 18th place respectively, the men’s and women’s cross country teams will not move on to the NCAA Championships, ending their season.
