Jones, Fisher add Pac-12 cross country titles, lead winning teams

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

MARCOLA, Ore. -- Grant Fisher and the Stanford men snapped Colorado's six-year reign at the Pac-12 Conference cross country championships Friday.

Fisher kicked away from Colorado's Joe Klecker to win in 23 minutes, 44.9 seconds and teammates Steven Fahy and Alex Ostberg were third and fourth to give the Cardinal the lift it needed. 

Stanford scored 41 to Colorado's 47 and made up ground in the final mile to pull out the victory. 

"It feels great," Fisher said. "We knew what we could do as a team and we just needed everyone to have a solid day. We're as deep as we've ever been this year. We have 10 guys that can mix it up and it's almost inevitable that five of us will have good days."

Fisher was second in 2016 and his Pac-12 victory came after four straight by graduated Oregon runner Edward Cheserek.

Stanford was ranked No. 9 by DyeStat coming in -- behind No. 5 Colorado and No. 7 Oregon -- but put it together. Tai Dinger placed 15th and Callum Bolger was 18th for the Cardinal.

"We probably passed four guys (in the last half mile)," Ostberg said of his final push with Fahy. "It was awesome to be rolling together at the end."

UCLA finished third with 103 points and Oregon was fourth with 109.

Earlier, when as morning fog still shrouded the course at the Springfield Country Club, Colorado's Dani Jones was able to kick away from fellow 1,500-meter track standouts Katie Rainsberger of Oregon and Amy-Eloise Neale of Washington. 

Jones ran 18:57.3. The course length was a bit short of of the standard 6K for women, 8K for men.

Jones, the reigning Pac-12 champion in the 1,500 and 5,000 on the track, led the Buffaloes to their third straight conference title and fourth overall. Kaitlyn Benner was eighth, Sage Hurta was ninth and Makena Morley was 15th.

"I finished and my only thought was the team score," Jones said. "(Coach) Heather (Burroughs) was screaming the right thing to me. 'Every point counts, every point counts!' So, me winning was just me trying to get the least amount of points."

Colorado scored 53 points. Oregon and Stanford both scored 71 points but the Ducks claimed second place on a tiebreaker (head to head matchups, 1-5). 

Rainsberger and Neale were less than two seconds behind Jones. 

Oregon had a couple of late scratches and only sent six to the starting line. The Ducks are in the midst of a training block and did very little resting, which included midterms this week.

"We all had three or four midterms this week," Rainsberger said. "I was taking a test at 5 o'clock last night."

Oregon finished fourth at the 2016 conference meet and then went on to win the NCAA title three weeks later.

"I think we, as a team, are good about going into races with a process-oriented approach and not a outcome-oriented approach," Rainsberger said. "I think if you look at where we are versus last year, I think we're two steps ahead."

Stanford's lineup was invigorated by the return of Christina Aragon, who was 19th, and Elise Cranny, was 25th. It was Cranny's first conference meet appearance since 2014, when she was second to Shelby Houlihan of Arizona State.