Oregon trip special for Mustangs

There’s running in most places in the country, and then there’s running in Eugene, Ore. The Nike “swoosh” debuted on running shoes there in 1972. The legacy of Steve Prefontaine, revered when he ran for Oregon then, lives on through major motion pictures. Thousands pack the stands and chant at Hayward Field for the Olympic Trials.

And starting at 9 a.m. Saturday, the Cal Poly cross country team will take it all in at the Bill Dellinger Invitational at Springfield Country Club.

“Distance running at the college level and beyond is synonymous with Eugene throughout history, with Steve Prefontaine and the legacy that goes on there,” Mustangs head coach Mark Conover said. “(Cal Poly’s runners) look forward to going up there and competing where it’s a community that really respects and enjoys and embraces its distance running and track and field.”

It will be the seventh time running there for Mustangs senior Troy Swier, but he said he expects it to be “just as fun as the first” race.

“I’m stoked,” he said. “I can’t wait. It’s the only place in the country people call ‘Tracktown, USA.’ Everyone loves racing here.”

The Mustangs, whose men are ranked 23rd in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll, won’t be the only team there with high expectations.

Oregon is ranked first on both the men’s and women’s sides. Others ranked in the men’s three-loop, 8,000-meter race include No. 5 Alabama, No. 7 Portland and No. 17 UTEP. The women’s two-loop, 6,000-meter race also features No. 11 Arkansas, No. 17 Colorado State and No. 23 BYU.

“It’ll be a really good opportunity to gauge where we’re at,” Conover said.

Last year, the Cal Poly men entered the NCAA Championships ranked 22nd but finished 11th. Just two runners graduated from that group.

One of those lost was two-time All-American Phillip Reid.

A key in replacing him could be junior Daniel Gonia.

Last spring with San Diego Mesa College, Gonia ran the 10K in 31 minutes, 2.61 seconds and the 5K in 14:56.38 to claim both California Community College titles. He was named the Big West Conference Male Cross Country Runner of the Week after winning the UC Santa Barbara Lagoon Open on Aug. 30 with an 8K course record of 24:23 – four seconds ahead of Reid.

“He’s made a big jump over where he was,” Conover said. “Fortunately for Cal Poly, he’s a very solid student and he wanted to study engineering, which I think might have helped the cause here for him to kind of lean toward Cal Poly, but he also had seen our results. He told me that when he was in high school he always dreamed of coming to Cal Poly.”

The Cal Poly women may be led by junior Bridie McCarey, who finished 18th among 278 entrants at the Stanford Invitational on Saturday.

Most of the Mustangs spent September away from actual competition, though.

“I decided it’d be better for them this year to use all of September to get a big chunk of training in,” Conover said.

This year’s squad has a resemblance to last year’s, Conover added.

“I do see similarities,” he said. “Daniel should certainly have a lot of confidence and just adds to that depth that we have employed the last few years, so it’s a very similar kind of makeup.”

Swier agreed that the Mustangs could exceed others’ expectations again.

“We’re going to surprise some people, I think,” he said.