JESSE GELEYNSE - The Daily Evergreen
The WSU women's cross country team is coming off consecutive No. 5 finishes at the Pac-10 championships. While head coach Jason Drake has higher expectations for the team this year, he said it may be tough for the team to finish higher.
"We haven't really been happy or satisfied [with fifth place]," he said, "but they could have their best year ever and still be fifth."
The women face stiff competition from last season's national champion, Stanford, and national fourth-place finisher Arizona State, who are expected to lead the conference.
"Stanford year-in and year-out is one of the best teams in the country, and ASU has been very strong for years," Drake said. "Oregon and Washington are also strong, and we're trying to get in the mix with them."
Junior Haley Paul, an All-American in 2005, will lead the women's squad. Paul finished No. 6 at the Pac-10 championships and No. 14 at the NCAA championships last fall, the highest finish ever for a WSU women's cross country runner.
"There's not much more she can do," Drake said. "She needs to keep doing what she's done."
Drake said it is great to have an All-American returning, but hopes other team members can add consistency that lacked the past year.
"We have the potential to be there but we never have had five women run well on the same day," he said.
Paul agreed, saying the team has the talent and the ability to place well.
"It would be sweet to send the team to nationals, and we have the talent to go," she said. "We just have to keep the girls healthy and believe we can go."
Now an upperclassman, Paul hopes to add a degree of leadership to the team in addition to her running prowess.
"I hope I'm a leader," she said. "We have a lot of freshmen and I hope they can look up to me."
Drake is excited about the incoming freshmen he expects to join the returning contingent in making an immediate impact.
"[Freshman] Chelsea VanDeBrake had a good summer training and is very talented," Drake said. "Lisa Egami is probably our best freshman coming in. She's a very talented middle-distance runner."
Also new to the squad are freshmen Anna Layman and Stephanie Sipes.
While the entire team will participate in the Sept. 1 season opener in Moscow, most meets allow seven or 10 runners per team, with the top five scores counting toward the team's total.
The NCAA regional meet is in Portland on Nov. 11, and the NCAA championships are in Terre Haute, Ind. on Nov. 20.
"Our goal is to be in the top five all the time and to make the NCAA national championships as a team," Drake said.