Rabbitt Places 4th at NCAA

UC Irvine’s Buffy Rabbitt finished fourth in the NCAA women’s cross-country championships Monday, leading the team to fourth place, the best finish in the program’s history.

Rabbitt was 25 seconds behind the winner, Villanova’s Sonia O’Sullivan, whose time of 16 minutes 6 seconds on the 5,000-meter course sparked her team to the NCAA title at Knoxville, Tenn.

Villanova scored 82 points, defeating second-place Providence by 90 points. Clemson was third, and Irvine was fourth, six points out of third and 11 points ahead of fifth-place Oregon, which had defeated Irvine by one point in an NCAA regional championship.

“Finishing fourth is a great effort for our team,” said Irvine Coach Vince O’Boyle. “It’s especially pleasing to be the top team from the West Coast. Those were three great teams that finished ahead of us.”

Arkansas won the men’s team title, scoring 68.2 points to defeat second-place Iowa State by 28.1 points. Notre Dame was third, Texas was fourth and Oregon was fifth.

Iowa State’s Jonah Koech won the individual title, running the men’s 10,000-meter course in 29:05.

In the women’s race, Wisconsin’s Suzy Favor was second, 12 seconds behind O’Sullivan, and Missouri’s Susan Bliss was third, a tenth of a second ahead of Rabbitt.

Maria Akraka, a Swedish half-miler in her first season running for Irvine, was the Anteaters’ second runner, taking 18th with a time of 16:52.

Irvine’s Rayna Cervantes finished 24th. Traci Goodrich, who has beaten Cervantes in two meets this season and often runs close to her time, finished 96th. The final runner to score for Irvine was Roberta Moronez, who was 136th.

Irvine’s Sita Jones was 138th, and teammate Jade Preato was 139th.

The Anteaters’ best finish at the NCAA championships before Monday was eighth, in 1987. Irvine was 10th last year.