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Not one, but two Big West championship titles. A true freshman with All-American honors. Director of track and field/cross country, Mark Conover, and his two teams have done it again.
“Any time you establish any form of consistency in sports at a high level, all the people involved need to be commended,” Conover said. “What the guys did and then the women in getting on top of the Big West mantle is huge. And to do it in the same year is a lot of fun. It just shows the camaraderie that exists between both genders and all the hard work that we put in. I can’t say enough about what they’ve accomplished and how proud I am of what they got done.”
In its last cross country team competition of the 2012 season, the women’s team placed 11th in the NCAA Tournament qualifying race and the men’s team placed 8th.
“Certainly we would have liked to give a better shot at getting to the NCAA Championships as teams,” Conover said. “On paper, we knew it was going to be a tough task. We competed hard at the regional meet but fell a bit short. All in all, they had an outstanding year for both of the teams.”
Senior David Cardona placed 17th in his last cross country race at Cal Poly. Laura Hollander was able to finish second in the race and clinch a position in the NCAA Tournament.
Hollander, the true freshman phenomenon out of Huntington Beach, Calif., received first place in four of her first five races as a Mustang. Both Cardona and Hollander received USTEFCCCA Division I Cross Country All-Region honors after their race in the NCAA Tournament qualifying race. Hollander earned Big West Women’s Athlete of the Year and Big West Women’s Freshman of the Year before being awarded a position of the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-American team following her ninth-place finish at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championship.
“To say I’m proud of her is an understatement,” Conover said. “The future looks very bright. We’ve all talked about what a great journey we have ahead of us.”
Cardona, along with Doug Bettisworth, Aric Champagne, Michael Johnson, Derek Thomas and Tobin Villalva are all seniors who will be unable to return to the Cal Poly men’s team for the 2013 cross country season.
Alex Ciaraglia and Vanessa Hancock are the only two seniors on the women’s team to graduate before the next cross country season.
“We have a lot of optimism because the majority of the team is coming back,” Conover said. “On the women’s side, it’s a particularly young team. On the men’s side, we have four of the top five coming back. The future looks bright.”
Jefferson P. Nolan contributed to this article.