This past weekend held a disappointing end to the SF State cross country teams’ season.

Although sickness and injury plagued both teams, the men’s race was the casualty of a tremendous blunder by the officials.

“It was probably one of the most odd things I’ve ever seen happen in a cross country race,” assistant coach Pete Cushman said.

“The race official guided the lead runners in the wrong direction about two miles into the race,” he explained.

“There were runners going through the trees and trying to put themselves back on track. It was a terrible disaster for a meet, especially at Regionals, which is one of the most important races of the year.”

“They ran about another 41⁄2 miles and ultimately decided to stop... and decided to rerun the 10k after the women’s race. Ultimately the guys had to run another four miles extra before the race started.”

The problem was that the officials orchestrating this year’s Division II West Regional Championships, held on the UC San Diego campus in La Jolla sent the bicycle, which leads the first place runners on the correct course, straight at a fork in the road where the runners were supposed to turn right.

“At this point, people in the back don’t know what’s going on and people in the front pack are heading right at them and it’s not a very wide trail,” Cushman said of the race held on Nov. 8.

“I’ve been running for eight years and this is the first time anything has ever happened like that. It was total chaos,” said Dan Napieralski, who was the Gator’s fourth runner of the day to cross the finish line ending in 85th place (38 minutes, 21.6 seconds) out of the field of 125 runners.

“[But] it meant I was leading the race for a very short time because all the top runners went the wrong way,” Napieralski said with a laugh.

The men’s team finally finished its 10k race in 11th place out of 18 teams with a score of 294 points. This falls short of qualifying to move on to the National Championships.

None of the men qualified individually, either.

Despite this huge mistake by the officials, which forced an extra four miles was not really the main factor that hindered the Gators in the day’s performance.

“We were pretty tired, but we knew everybody else was really tired too, and we’ve put a lot of miles in over the years,” Napieralski said.

“We knew that the school who ran the mileage were going to do really good, so we just tried to do that.”

Several of the team’s top runners were competing with chronic injuries or while sick, Cushman said.

According to Cushman, Josh Babiak one of the top performers on the men’s team and an All-American was running with an injury to the arch of his foot. Men’s team captain Kyle Fujitsubo, ran while plagued with a flu.

Jason Karbelk delivered another standout performance despite the blunder by the officials and the 80 degree weather.

“Jason had a much better second race than he did in the first,” Cushman said.

“He ended up taking 24th, which is outstanding. He was four spots away from being All-Region and about 40 or 45 seconds off qualifying for Nationals. It’s a great way for him to end his career at SF State.”

Karbelk finished the run with a time of 34:35.8 and was the first Gator to cross the line, building on his attainment of the All-Conference title last month.

Sophomore Andrew Lavallee was also mentioned by both Cushman and Napieralski as having ran a great race. Lavallee finished in 41st with a time of 35:20.6.

On the men’s team, Josh Babiak finished the race in 41st with a time of 35:20.6, Kyle Fujitsubo in 90th with 38:34, and Mark DePasquale in 91st at 38:41.8.

The women’s team was wracked with illness and injury as well.

The women placed 13th out of 24 schools with a score of 320 points. This too was short of qualifying for the National Championships.

The women’s team also had no one qualify to go on to Nationals as individuals.

“It was a really hard run and a really hard day,” said senior Vera Ross, who was the second SF State finisher in the women’s 6k (68th, 24:52.4).

“There was a lot of dust on the course so with the run it was all kicked up. It was really hot [and] a couple of girls had trouble breathing.”

“Nothing exciting like that [the bad directing of the men] happened in the women’s race, but it was the most competitive field we’ve had all year,” Ross said.

Anna Bretan, also a holder of the All-American title, ran while suffering pneumonia, and junior Tanya Ferriera was injured, according to Ross and Cushman.

Despite her sickness, Bretan finished tops for the purple and gold runners in 25th with a time of 23:22.6.

Ferriera, who is normally one of the team’s faster runners, came in last for the Gators in 122nd place with a time of 26:39.1.

“I’m pretty happy and I think it went well. We still had a few runners not feeling as best as they could but we still did well anyway,” Ross said.

“It happens to everybody. You’ve got to just try and work through them and just be there for the team. I think that was the hardest thing. Everybody was there for team [while hurt and sick].”

As far as her performance, Ross said, “This was my last race as a collegian runner so I just tried to keep that in mind as a way of motivating myself.”

Ross also said she plans on taking a break from running after track season but will then most likely join a running club in order to stay in condition.

On the women’s team, other finishing times were junior Claire Fleming in 86th place with a time of 25:23.3, freshman Rachel Harrington (88th, 25:24.3), Karen Marchan (93rd, 25:28.3) and Lisa Herrera (97th, 25:33.5).

This marks the conclusion of the 2008 cross country season.