The Barometer Online

Issue date: 11/16/06 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Sam Leinen Oregon State will have one more with junior Kaitlin Poggi, who emerged this year as the Beavers' No. 1 runner.

"It is time" was the OSU cross-country team's slogan entering its third season since being reinstated. The three words signified that the Beavers were ready to make a jump from the previous two seasons.

And with three team invitational wins and a West Region poll ranking for nearly the entire season, the slogan was a perfect match for the Beavers' accomplishments in 2006.

"I think we went into the year fully expecting to be very, very competitive in the meets we were racing in," coach Kelly Sullivan said.

"It was a good next step for the program, and although there were still some growing pains this year, it's great that we will still won the meets as well as we did."

For the first time in school history, the Beavers won more than one meet in a season. After a sixth place team finish at the season-opening Sundodger Invitational, Oregon State began a dominating stretch of team performances. Led by juniors Kaitlin Poggi and Neoma Palmer, the Beavers won the 19-team Chuck Bowles Invitational in Salem, and then easily defeated runner up Kentucky at the 13-team Cal Poly Invitational.

With the Beavers' top runners taking the week off in preparation for the Pac-10 Championships, the Beavers "B" runners ended the regular season with a team win at the Beaver Classic at Avery Park in Corvallis.

Around this time, Sullivan saw his team starting to believe that the team had made big strides in the prior meets leading up to the Pac-10 Championships.

"They really kicked open the door and I think they really started to believe that they were a better team," Sullivan said. "After the Cal Poly meet, they came back and had a brilliant workout, so all indications led up to us having a pretty good race at the Pac-10 meet."

Entering the Pac-10 Championships in Palo Alto, Calif., the Beavers were looking to improve on the eighth place team finish from the previous year. Illness, however, began to plague the team the week leading up to the race from, and would linger around for the remainder of the season as many player succumbed to a cold or flu. Whether it hurt the team or not, the team's eighth place finish at the Pac-10 meet this season was a disappointment to the Beavers.

Continued...

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