Diego Mercado (background) and Daniel Mercado are two of five returning All-Americans on the Oregon men's cross country team. The Ducks have the top-ranked team in the nation entering the season.

Shadrack Kiptoo-Biwott finished sixth at the 2007 NCAA Cross Country championships after winning the Pacific-10 Conference individual cross country championship. He is one of five returning All-Americans for Oregon.

Senior Galen Rupp, last year's 2007 NCAA runner-up in cross country, will be counted on to lead the Oregon men to their second consecutive national championship, but he does not plan to race until the Pacific-10 Conference Championships on October 31.

In the three weeks before school started, the Oregon men's and women's cross country teams came together in Sunriver, a resort community 15 miles south of Bend. Hundred-mile weeks spent on golf courses and hiking trails tested the Ducks physically in anticipation of a tough season.

"Primarily, we're only thinking about running. It's pretty much a worry-free environment," junior Diego Mercado said. "It's just three weeks of just the most intense training we probably have this year. The purpose of it is to get the entire summer's worth of what we're supposed to be doing and pack it into a three-week session.

"It allows us to get all the technical stuff out of the way and put our goals and priorities in perspective."

Coming into the season as the defending national champions and the No. 1 team in the nation can alter your perspective, but the Oregon men are taking that challenge head on. Of course, returning all seven runners from the 2007 NCAA Championship meet helps, especially if five are returning All-Americans - Galen Rupp, Shadrack Kiptoo-Biwott, Diego Mercado, Kenny Klotz and Daniel Mercado, Diego's twin brother.


That kind of depth inspired the voters of the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll to unanimously anoint the Duck men the "best team" in the preseason. Oklahoma State, the third-place finisher at the 2007 NCAAs, is the nation's second-ranked team, followed closely by Colorado.

"You all know I'm only interested in the poll the day after the NCAAs, the day after we compete in the meet," head coach Vin Lananna said. "But I think it's a good thing."

The Oregon men's cross country team is responsible for five of Oregon's 14 national championships, winning consecutive national championships in 1973-74, part of four in seven years under the tutelage of head coach Bill Dellinger. The Ducks figure to, once again, be in the picture come Nov. 24.

Time to focus.

"We do have a target on our backs," Diego Mercado said. "I don't really think about it any more, I guess. If we go out to races thinking, 'Oh, we are the big dogs,' then obviously we're going to get taken down.

"We shouldn't really worry about what anybody else thinks or about what team we should be looking out for."

If Diego Mercado has taken a suspicious approach to the preseason praise, Lananna has opted for the philosophical route.

"I think it's great for publicity. It's great to generate interest in the sport of cross country," he said.

"The cross country season is all about progressing one step at a time, focusing on the championship portion of the season as a whole, and you have to get excited about each of those events and not just wait for one meet, or else we'd just go run the NCAAs."

Lananna's demeanor - in addition to the six cross country national championships to his name - is easy for the Ducks to buy into.

"He emphasizes about just going in, following directions, do your job and come home with the trophy," Diego Mercado said.

In Saturday's Bill Dellinger Invitational, the men will face off against four other ranked opponents: No. 5 Alabama, No. 7 Portland, No. 12 UTEP and No. 21 Cal Poly. Every move the Duck men make will be scrutinized, and a team victory in the Invitational could mean extra leverage in obtaining a ticket to the NCAA Championships.

"In the end it's not about who ends up in front of me or anything like that," Diego Mercado said. "It's about us."

rhusseman@dailyemerald.com

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