UCI Men Finish 11th at NCAA Race

Gus Quinonez finished 54th out of 173 runners to help the UC Irvine men’s cross-country team place 11th in the NCAA Division I championships Monday.

Quinonez, a junior, covered the hilly 10,000-meter course in 32.08. Aaron Ramirez of the University of Arizona won the race in 30.27. Arkansas won the team championship.

“I’m very pleased. It was a super performance,” said Vince O’Boyle, UCI coach. “We were ranked 16th before the race and to place 11th in our first national meet is great.”

Other UCI finishers were Richard Graves (32.10, 58th), Rod Curry (32.17, 68th), Ralph Garibaldi (32.35, 28th) and Steve Imlay (33.01, 112th).

“Lots of people look at us only as individuals,” Quinonez said. “But we really worked well as a team. We wanted to be known and now we are.”

In the women’s race, UCLA’s Polly Plumer, formerly of Irvine’s University High School, finished 14th out of 129 by covering the 5,000-meter course in 17.25.

Angela Chalmers of Northern Arizona won the race with course record (16.55). Texas won the women’s title with 62 points.

Plumer, a senior who recently returned to competition after a lengthy illness, finished fourth in last year’s final and said this year’s course was more challenging.

“I felt just OK for the first mile,” she said. “But the hills really got to me. I was pretty dead at the finish.”

UCI’s Jill Harrington, running as an individual, placed 46th (18:04).