Skieresz Continues Remarkable Run

Junior Amy Skieresz of the University of Arizona cruised to her 11th consecutive cross-country victory over the last two seasons Saturday when she won the Murray Keatinge Invitational at the University of Maine.

Skieresz, the defending NCAA champion and a 1995 graduate of Agoura High, clocked a course record of 16:32.9 over the 5,000-meter distance to defeat second-place Jenna Rogers of Dartmouth by 38 seconds.

Freshman David Lopez and senior Margarito Casillas, 1997 and ’92 graduates of Hoover High, helped Arizona place second behind Michigan in the men’s race.

Lopez and Casillas placed 22nd and 23rd with times of 24:53.2 and 24:55.8 over the five-mile course.

Waiting game: Patience is a virtue.

That’s what Brigham Young freshman Andrea Neipp plans to tell herself for the next several weeks as she lets an injured hip flexor muscle heal.

Neipp, the 1996 state Division II cross-country champion for Highland High, sustained the injury in early September, but she hoped to recover in time to make an impact on the No. 2-ranked Brigham Young team by the end of the season.

“I just did too much mileage too fast,” Neipp said. “I was cross-training for a while in hopes of coming back, but it just wasn’t healing so we decided to redshirt.”

Neipp, who placed third in the 3,200 in the state track championships in June, expects to sit out the indoor track season before coming back for the outdoor campaign.

“I just have to let it heal,” Neipp said of the injury. “I don’t want to come back too fast and hurt it again.”

Neipp is enjoying college life at BYU, but she does miss the weather in Southern California.

“It snowed over the weekend,” she said. “I was excited at first, but now I’m not looking forward to a long winter. I guess I’m just a California girl.”

SOCCER

It’s no secret: In the 1997 New Mexico women’s soccer media guide, Lobo forward Heidi Greco, a Crescenta Valley High product, says her ambition after college is to become a secret agent.