Women of Troy look to keep pace at Northridge Invitational


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Fresh off its best team performance of the season at the Vanguard Invitational, the USC women’s cross country team will travel to the San Fernando Valley for Friday’s Cal State Northridge Invitational.

In what coach Tom Walsh says will be the last race before he chooses which runners will race at the Pac-10 Championships in two weeks, the Women of Troy will feature most of their top runners and figure to be right near the top of the pack on Friday.

“The competition will be better quality than it was at the Vanguard Invite,” Walsh said. “But I think our girls are in a much better position than they were a month ago.”

Walsh attributed his confidence not only to the team’s strong performance at Vanguard, but also to the boost in morale that he has seen since the Women of Troy won that meet.

“Our confidence is much higher,” Walsh said. “After we had our first hard workout since the Vanguard meet, the girls ran really well. There was definitely something extra there.”

“We were a frustrated team because we knew we were doing really well in practices but it wasn’t showing up in races. Vanguard was the first meet where we said ‘OK, we’re going to be fine,’” Walsh said.

Walsh said that although his team is confident, they are still keeping things realistic.

“We’d like to be in the top two or three as a team,” Walsh said. “We’re holding out three good runners [senior Katherine Ellis, freshman Kelly Owen, sophomore Leah Gaeta]. With that in mind, my goal is to just try and keep the momentum that we have going.”

The Women of Troy will face teams from San Diego State, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, Cal State Fullerton and host Cal State Northridge, among others. USC will counter with a group that includes top juniors Zsofia Erdelyi and Christine Cortez, as well as senior captain Bridget Helgerson and freshman standout Kathleen Moloney. After the Northridge meet, Walsh will have the difficult task of choosing either eight or nine girls to make up his Pac-10 Championships squad.

“It’s going to be hard for me,” Walsh said. “There are so many girls within a few seconds of each other that someone’s going to be left out. I attribute that to our depth this year.”

When asked what he will base his choices on, however, Walsh made it clear that he would not go strictly by the numbers.

“I’m going to base it on performance throughout the season, yes,” Walsh said. “But I’m also going to choose those who I feel can run best in a big meet. There are girls that can run when the pressure isn’t on. I want to try to select the eight that can run well when the pressure is on.”

The Cal State Northridge Invitational will provide the Women of Troy one last chance to prove themselves, both as a team and as individuals, before the Pac-10 Championships on Oct. 30. The Northridge 6K race begins at 4:45 p.m.