Sports Shorts Sports Shorts (March 23, 2005)

LOCAL RUNNERS SHINE...Stanford alum Lauren Fleshman led the U.S. women's team to a bronze medal Sunday in the 4K race at 2005 World Cross Country Championships in Saint Galmier, France. The 14-time All-American at Stanford finished 11th to pace the Americans, who finished behind Ethiopia and Kenya. "I got some really good advice from some athletes who ran yesterday to stay conservative and stay within myself," Fleshman said. "I had a really strong kick home and passed some people in the last 50 meters (to finish where I did)." Stanford freshman Lindsay Flacks felt right at home in the balmy France weather, and it showed in her performance: she placed 30th in the junior women's 6K race. "I got close to the back of the back in the beginning...but I love this weather, it's definitely California weather, so I'm used to that," said Flacks, who's from Calabasas. "People started dropping off the last two kilometers and it felt great picking people off one at a time." Fellow Cardinal freshman Hakon DeVries and Menlo-Atherton grad Jeremy Mineau from the University of Washington, finished 50th and 67th, respectively, in the junior men's 8K race. Mineau admitted after the race that he's adjusting slowly to the rigors of running internationally. "This is totally different from a collegiate field," he said. "It's intense the entire way." Fatigue was a factor for DeVries as well. "It was probably one of the hottest races I've run temperature-wise I've run in my life," he said. "There's no shade on the course and it just got to me." Former NCAA 1,500-meter champion and Stanford alum Donald Sage ran his way to 60th place in the men's 4K race. Stanford senior Ian Dobson placed 61st overall in the men's 12K race.

CARDINAL CORNER . . . The defending national champion Stanford women's volleyball team opens its spring schedule on April 9 against San Francisco. The Cardinal host the Stanford Spring Fling at Maples, April 30 . . . The Stanford crew program will again host the Windermere Collegiate Crew Classic, an invitational rowing regatta held at Redwood Shores on Saturday, April 9 from 9am to 5:30pm, and Sunday, April 10 from 9 a.m. to 4:30 pm. The regatta features crew races between 17 of the nation's top universities as well as nearly 400 Bay Area community and high school rowers.

OAKS' CORNER . . . The Menlo College softball team won two of three games played over the weekend at the Pioneer Classic in Hayward. The Oaks beat Claremont, 6-1, on Friday and 2-1 on Sunday. Menlo lost to Southern Oregon, 4-3, on Saturday . . . The Menlo College baseball team had three games at Cal Lutheran over the weekend cancelled due to rain.

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