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The UCLA women’s cross country team struggled to a fourth place finish in the Pac-10 Championships at the Brookside Country Club in Pasadena. The squad is looking for a better performance at the NCAA West Regional Qualifying meet at Stanford Nov. 16.

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The UCLA women’s cross country team is planning on coming back strong after an upset at last Saturday’s Pac-10 Championships.

The Bruin women, expected to take third, came back with an overall fourth-place finish. Despite the lower-than-hoped-for standings, some individual runners had their moment to shine – junior Lena Nilsson and sophomore Alejandra Barrientos ran races that could be listed among their personal bests.

The women will now be focusing their time and energy on improving their aggressiveness in order to qualify as a team for the NCAA Championships. They will be competing in the NCAA West Regional Qualifying meet at Stanford on Nov. 16, hoping to return to the championships scheduled for Nov. 25 in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Almost certain to achieve an individual qualifying time for the NCAA is Nilsson, who took third overall at the Pac-10 meet with a time of 20:01 in the 6000 meters. The former track runner has been practicing with the team over the past couple months, strengthening herself for the long distance runs. Even with the loudest cheering section at the awards ceremony and head coach Eric Peterson’s praise, she still felt she could have done a little bit better.

“I probably could have put a bigger effort, pushed myself harder,” Nilsson said. “Physically, I can run with them but mentally I’m not ready.”

She hopes that by next year’s season she can “be ready to fight for the win.”

Nilsson was UCLA’s fourth-best finisher at last year’s NCAA Championships. In track and field she was the second athlete in Pac-10 meet history to win both the 800 meters (2:03.88) and 1500 meters (4:20.81) and was named Conference Women’s Athlete of the Year.

Sophomore Alejandra Barrientos accomplished both goals she set for her race. The first was to place within the top 10; she finished ninth with 21:11. Her next goal was to pass a lead runner from the Arizona team, which happened in the final stretch.

“What I accomplished, (for the) team and individually, was good,” she said about her race. However as a team she feels UCLA underachieved. “We need to work on being tougher at the end,” Barrientos said.

“We came in with really high hopes,” Peterson said about Saturday’s meet. Yet with such a young team he feels the women just got too discouraged towards the end.

“It takes time and experience to run effectively,” he said. Motivation and enthusiasm are also things he hopes to work on.

The positive outlook on the meet, according to Peterson, is that they had to get worse before they got better. Now they can work on making the changes needed to improve their program.

The next race for the women’s and men’s teams will be the NCAA West Regional Qualifying meet at Stanford, scheduled for Nov. 16.