CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE CROSS-COUNTRY PREVIEW : Teams Hopeful in the Long Run

With the NCAA District VIII cross-country meet scheduled for Nov. 10, the men’s and women’s teams from Cal State Northridge will have to make a huge--perhaps miraculous--improvement in the remaining eight weeks to have a chance at qualifying for the Division I championships in Knoxville, Tenn.

That much was evident in the Fresno Invitational at Woodward Park on Saturday when the Matadors placed ninth among 14 scoring teams in the women’s race and 11th among 13 in the men’s.

In previous years, Northridge Coach Don Strametz could have defended those finishes by noting that the Matadors were a Division II team competing against Division I schools. That no longer is the case.

The Northridge women, who placed fourth in last year’s Division II meet in Marshalls Creek, Pa., finished behind seven Division I schools at Fresno, as well as eight-time defending Division II champion Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

The men’s team, fifth in the 1989 Division II championships, not only lost to seven Division I teams but also finished behind Division II teams San Luis Obispo and Cal State Los Angeles and Division III school Occidental.

On top of that, the first three men’s teams in last year’s District VIII meet (Oregon, Washington and Stanford) and two of the top three women’s teams (Washington and UCLA) did not even run at Fresno, site of this year’s district meet.

“This year is going to be a learning experience,” Strametz said. “We’re very young and inexperienced.” Only two of the Matadors’ top seven men’s runners return and only three of the top seven women runners are back.

Sasha Vujic (eighth in the Division II championships), Jorge Castro (11th) and Jeff Gilkey (38th), the Matadors’ top three men’s runners in 1989, are among the missing.

Vujic and Castro are redshirting, and Gilkey is not enrolled at CSUN, according to Strametz.

Megan Warner, Georgia McLean and Persephone Lowery, Northridge’s Nos. 4, 6 and 7 women’s runners, also are redshirting.

Northridge is not necessarily lacking experienced runners, but they are in short supply.

Darcy Arreola, a three-time Division II All-American and last year’s Division II cross-country champion, is a senior who placed second at Fresno, but freshmen make up the majority of this year’s team.

Derik Vett, who ran in the Division II meet in 1986, ‘87, and ‘89, was the Matadors’ top finisher (32nd place) at Fresno, but he will have to improve markedly in the district meet to contend for a national berth.

The top two teams and the top three individuals among the top 20 finishers who are not on a qualifying team, will earn an automatic berth to the Division I championships Nov. 19.

Arreola, a nine-time Division II All-American in cross-country and track, should qualify for the national meet unless something unforeseen happens, but the Northridge teams are longshots at best.

“(The women’s team) is very young,” Strametz said. “But with a strong front-runner (Arreola), we might be able to qualify for nationals if everyone else runs well.”

The men’s team most likely will have to wait until next year.

“Hopefully, we’ll have a good recruiting year,” Strametz said, “and with Sasha and Jorge coming back, we should be pretty tough.”