Aztecs’ Meet Hits a Roadblock

The 50th running of the Aztec Cross Country Invitational has been delayed.

For a year.

On the assumption that San Diego State’s cross-country team suffered the same kind of budget cuts that track had, many of the teams set to compete in this weekend’s event bowed out before it was actually canceled.

“People looked at it as our whole programs being cut when men’s track was cut,” SDSU Coach Rahn Sheffield said. “When things like that get out, they get out in a big way. Some people took it for granted that we wouldn’t have an invitational. By the time they found out they were wrong, it was too late.”

Last year, the invitational drew a 55-team field. When several teams withdrew their commitments to attend this year, Sheffield had to pull the plug on the run.

Sheffield found out two weeks ago that UC Irvine’s coach was staging his own meet--on the same day as the Aztecs’--and several teams slated to run here opted for UCI.

“Three days after I heard Irvine was putting on a meet, we had to work fast on whether to cancel out or not,” he said. “If we had scaled it back, we would have lost a lot of money. It put everyone in a bad position.”

Sixteen teams had committed to run here, including Arkansas, USC, UCLA, Arizona State and Northern Arizona, but without at least 22 teams, the event couldn’t survive.

“We just didn’t have enough teams,” said Sheffield, who denied a rumor that the UCI coach had spread the word of the SDSU event’s demise to get teams to attend his.

When Sheffield canceled, University of San Diego Coach Richard Cota and Point Loma Nazarene Coach Jim Crakes swung into action.

The result is the San Diego City Open, which will be Saturday at Morley Field after the high school Sundevil Invitational earlier in the day. Participating schools are USD, PLNC, SDSU, Azusa Pacific and USC. The women will run a 5K race at 2:30 p.m.; the men will run 8K at 3:15.

“It won’t be that strong a field, but it’ll be a nice workout,” said Crakes, who has entered PLNC in the SDSU meet for 18 years. “(SDSU had) intimated they want to reconstitute it for next year, but once you lose it, it’s hard to get people back.”

Sheffield agreed, but said he hopes he can entice teams back.

“The bigger or better teams we hope to comp their hotels,” he said. “Maybe that will get them back.”

Football wasn’t the only San Diego State program to upset a top-ranked team last week. For the first time in the four years of SDSU’s women’s soccer program, the Aztecs turned the tables on a top-25 team when they ousted UC Santa Barbara.

Friday at Cuyamaca College, SDSU defeated 16th-ranked UCSB, 3-0, on goals from freshman midfielder Shawn Viloria, senior midfielder Leanna Jay and junior defender Kim Komara, a Bonita Vista High graduate.

The Aztecs are 1-2 for the season after losing to No. 13 Santa Clara, 3-0, on Sept. 8 and to USD, 2-1, on Tuesday.

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Someone from the entourage that accompanied USD’s football team to La Verne for Saturday’s 21-21 tie against the Leopards apparently felt that kicker Robert Ray, who missed the potential 22-yard game-winning field goal with three seconds to play, didn’t feel badly enough about the missed kick.

“Hey, Ray, were you and Andy Trakas working out together this summer?” he asked.

Trakas missed a 30-yard field goal that cemented SDSU’s 31-31 fate against USC.

Ray, who had answered reporters’ questions patiently, ignored the remark.

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After ties by SDSU and USD, Grossmont College felt left out. So it played to a 6-6 stalemate in its opener Saturday against visiting College of the Desert.

Grossmont jumped to a 6-0 first-half lead on 37- and 51-yard field goals by West Hills High graduate Nathan Vail, whose 51-yard kick bettered his personal best by 8 yards.

Desert’s Jay Hrudtka answered back with two fourth-quarter field goals. On the second kick, Hrudtka missed from 32 yards out, but Grossmont jumped offsides and Hrudtka was successful from the 27 with 4:58 to play.

COD regained possession on an interception, and with five seconds to play, Hrudtka’s 26-yard field goal attempt was blocked by Grossmont’s Mike Cagle, a Lincoln High graduate, to preserve the tie.

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Good vibes accompanied former Torrey Pines High standout Sarah McCandless home when she returned to San Diego last weekend for the ASICS Grand Prix women’s volleyball tournament.

McCandless, now a freshman at University of San Francisco, had 44 assists in a 12-15, 15-1, 15-7, 16-14 victory over Villanova.

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Going into the week, some area volleyball players led their respective conferences in key categories: SDSU senior outside hitter Jennifer Miller paced the Western Athletic Conference with the top hitting percentage (.367), and teammate Stephanie Riley was second (.356). USD junior middle blocker Nikki Wallace was tops in the West Coast Conference in blocks (53).

As a team, SDSU led the WAC with the most aces per game (2.30), and USD has the best blocks-per-game average (3.36) in the WCC.

Another former area standout, San Pasqual High’s Blair Noonan, now of Pepperdine, was second in the WCC with 4.23 kills per game.