After the dust settled at last year’s Pacific-10 Conference Championships, the Stanford women’s track and field team had its two-year win streak snapped by Southern California, and the men settled for second as well.

As in years past, Stanford will rely heavily on its distance squad to propel them back to the top of the Pac-10 this season. The Cardinal returns all of its individual champions at events 800 meters and above.

Leading the returnees is senior Louis Luchini who claimed both the Pac-10 5,000- and 10,000-meter titles last year and went on to finish second at the NCAA Championships in the 5,000.

Redshirt junior Ian Dobson should also be a threat at the distance events, with the top returning 10,000-meter time in the NCAA, as well as some big race success with his second-place showing in the 5,000 at the Indoor NCAA Championships. Both Dobson and Luchini will be looking to qualify for the Olympic Trials with a shot at traveling to Athens for the 2004 Games.

All-Americans Chris Emme and Neil Davis, as well as freshmen Brett Gotcher and Peter Meindl, will boost the Cardinal’s distance squad.

The men also return the reigning Pac-10 and NCAA 1,500-meter champion, senior Grant Robison. After the regular NCAA season, Robison spent the summer competing on the European track circuit, lowering his personal record to 3:35.75, the third-fastest time in school history and No. 2 in the U.S. last year.

Joining Robison at the middle distances is the 2002 NCAA 1,500-meter champion, junior Don Sage, and sophomore Ryan Hall, the runner-up at the 2003 NCAA Cross Country Championships.

All three of these athletes have a legitimate chance to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team this year in the 1,500.

Sophomore Justin Romaniuk, the 2003 Pac-10 800-meter champion, sophomore Jacob Gomez, senior Seth Hejny and senior Andy Powell should help boost the Cardinal’s middle-distance depth even more at both the Pac-10 and NCAA level.

Despite the dominance of Stanford’s program, the sprinting and field teams will still be needed to capture the men’s third Pac-10 title in four years.

Juniors Nick Sebes and Curt Goehring return as Stanford’s top 400 runners. Both opened in fine fashion at the Stanford Invitational and look to not only help qualify for the 1,600-meter relay team for the NCAA Championships again, but help the Cardinal by scoring points at Pac-10s.

Joining them will be juniors Gerren Crochet and Jeff Conkey. Romaniuk, junior Evan Fox and freshman Russell Brown may also contribute to the 1,600-relay team this season.

The jumps are headlined by sophomore Solomon Welch, the reigning Junior National champion in the event. Welch placed fourth at last year’s championships with a freshman-record jump of 50 feet, 9.50 inches. Welch also looks to score at the long jump this year.

In the throws, senior Jay Goff appears to be on a mission to qualify for the NCAA Championships. After working through last season with nagging injuries, Goff looks poised to be one of Stanford’s best javelin throwers ever and make some noise at the national level.

Despite the returning talent, it will not be an easy road to the title. USC returns one of the best jumpers in the nation in Allen Sims, while UCLA’s Dan Ames is considered one of the top shot putters in the country.

Oregon will bring one of its strongest, most balanced squads ever, complimented by NCAA Indoor pole vault runner-up and senior All-American Jason Hartmann, who could do the most harm to the Cardinal by upsetting Stanford’s distance runners, taking away valuable points. The Ducks and the Trojans are the favorites for the Pac-10 title.

The distance squad will also face strong challenges from Arizona’s Robert Cheseret, one of the NCAA’s top distance runners, and Washington’s Eric Garner.

For the sprinters, there is no easy road. USC, UCLA, and Arizona State all boast nationally-recognized sprint squads and most of the Pac-10 schools have one or more sprinters ranked nationally.

Despite these challenges, the Cardinal will compete at the top level as it always has both at the conference and national level and, in the meantime, will focus on trying to qualify for both the Pac-10 and Regional Championships in May.

Many of the athletes will have that chance this weekend as the men’s and women’s squads will split between the Brutus Hamilton Invitational at Berkeley and the Rafer Johnson Invitational at UCLA.

Most of the throwers will be traveling south to face UCLA, one of the nation’s top throwing powers, as well as some elite competition in the throwing events.

The rest of the athletes will travel across the Bay to face rival California on its home track. They will also meet competitors from Ohio State, Brigham Young and Washington State, as well as some Division II programs, open runners and members of the Nike Farm Team, which is a professional running club based here at Stanford.

The Brutus Hamilton Invitational will be an opportunity for most of the sprinters to open up and start posting the needed qualifying marks, while the mid-distance squad will use the meet as a chance to run off-events in which they normally do not compete. The distance squad will use this primarily as a tune-up for the Mt. San Antonio College Relays, one of the nation’s top collegiate invitationals, which will be held next weekend in Los Angeles, Calif.