OSU Cross Country & Track
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Oregon State Cross Country and Track
The Beavers Return
After a sixteen year sabbatical the Oregon State Beavers returned to the track and the course in 2004, reinstating a women’s distance running program that competed at the Division One Level in the PAC-10 Conference in both cross country and track.
Upcoming Event
The 2006 track season is slowly coming to an end, but some of the biggest meets of the year are still to come for the beavers. Friday, April 28th, the beavers will travel to Western Oregon to compete in The Western Oregon Twilight Meet. The next major competition for the beavs will be the PAC-10 Championships at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon on May 12th and 13th, and those who qualify will continue on to compete at the West Regional meet in Provo, Utah on the 26th and 27th of May.
About The Coaches
The beavers are lead by a group of very talented coaches. Head Coach Kelly Sullivan boasts an impressive resume. He began his coaching career at Clackamas Community College, and continued to become the head men's and women's coach at Auburn University for twelve years. His Auburn teams were incredibly successful placing very highly at the national meet many years, and winning several SEC conference championships. After leaving Auburn in 1996 Sullivan returned to coach at his alma mater, Willamette Univesity and he had tremendous success there as well. Sullivan also served as an assistant coach for the USA at the World Track and Field Championships in 2001. He brings an immense amount of coaching experience from every level, and he has already had a lot of success here at Oregon State. Coach Sullivan is confident that in the next few years Oregon State Cross Country and Track will be an extremely competitive team in one of the best running conferences in the nation, the PAC-10.
About The Team
The current beaver squad primarily consists of underclassmen who hail from the state of Oregon. The first recruiting class brought in a lot of talent including Kaitlin Poggi, a highly recruited distance runner from Gladstone, Oregon. The team also consists of runners who were already students at Oregon State and who continued running independently at the school while there was no program. Ashley Younce, a senior, joined the team after taking two years off from competitive running and has become one of the beaver's top performers, qualifying for the west regional meet in the 5000 meters with an impressive time of 16:50.52. This year's recruiting class also drew in a lot of talent including Katelyn VanBrunt, the 2005 state of Oregon 4A champion in the 800 meters.
The beavers are also blessed with many talented assistant coaches. Cynthia Castro serves as one of the beaver's main assistant coaches. Castro, a 2003 graduate of Arizona State University, ran on the cross country and track teams there for four years. Although Castro's career was laiden with injuries, she still acheived many great accomplishments and has a lot of knowledge to share with team about running in the PAC-10.
The other assistant coach for the beavers is Conor Holt a native of Ireland and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, where he was a six-time all american in both track and cross country. Conor has a lot of running knowledge and experience to share with the team and has been a tremendous addition to the coaching staff this year.
Facilities
Oregon State University is in the process of building a new track facility. They will be hosting the PAC-10 Cross Country Championships in October 2007. The first major alumni reunion is planned for the same weekend. There are countless places the team trains, including Willamette Park, Avery Park, Bald Hill, and McDonald Forest.
Roster
To see the complete bio for each team member, visit the team homepage
Addison, Rachael
Aschwanden, Elise
Crawford, Nicole
Denfeld, Lauren
Dye, Katie
Francis, Ashley
Fuller, Jaime
Garcia, Julie
Godfrey, Samantha
Harer, Noelle
Horton, Melissa
Larson, Ashley
Mangels, Megan
Megale, Elise
O'Connor, Jenny
Palmer, Neoma
Peterson, Jean-Marie
Poggi, Kaitlin
Pullen, Chelsea
Rumore, Danya
Russell, Taylor
Stirewalt, Tara
Thomson, Holly
Van Brunt, Katelyn
Veal, Sylvia
Wilson, Michelle
Younce, Ashley
Young, Lorene
