Hoover’s Lopez Expects to Run a Little Smoother

A week ago, David Lopez became the third Hoover High runner to qualify for the national cross-country championships when he placed third in the West regional at Fresno’s Woodward Park.

Today, he will try to make one of three All-American teams when the national finals are held at Morley Field in Balboa Park.

The meet starts at 10 a.m. with the girls’ race. The boys’ race is at 10:45.

“My goal right now is just to finish in the top 10,” Lopez said. “If not that, then to finish in the top 15.”

The top five finishers in the boys’ and girls’ races are selected to the All-American first team, with the next five named to the second team and finishers 11-15 qualifying for the third team.

Lopez, a senior, went from 40th to third in the final two miles of the West regional, but he won’t have to fight his way through as large a field today. With each race consisting of 32 runners--comprised of the top eight finishers from four regional meets--there won’t be the kind of congestion that prevailed at the West regional, where 242 runners finished the boys’ race.

“I think [the smaller field] will help me,” Lopez said. “I feel last Saturday that I didn’t really run my race. I got kind of scared out there after the first mile.

“Even though I came through in the time I was supposed to, there were so many guys ahead of me that I kind of forgot what I was doing out there.”

Lopez will be the lone competitor from the Valley region in today’s meet.

The girls’ race will have no runners from the Valley area for only the third time since the meet began in 1979.