The men's and women's teams from Concordia display their championship hardware shortly after sweeping the team titles at the Lewis & Clark Invitational Saturday.
Concordia Sweeps Titles at Lewis & Clark Invite
Men's Results I Women's Results
ESTACADA, Ore. – With three top 10 finishers on the men’s side and two on the women’s, the Concordia Cavaliers swept the team titles at the NCAA-laden Lewis and Clark Invitational here at McIver Park Saturday.
The victories by the Cavaliers against fields that included five NCAA squads could boost both programs into the NAIA Top 25 when new polls are released on Tuesday. In this week’s rankings both CU teams just missed cracking the Top 25; the women were rated 27th and the men 28th.
A total of four Cascade Collegiate Conference programs -- CU, Corban, Oregon Tech and Northwest Christian -- competed in the event.
CU’s Linsie Michels and Andria Scheese finished 2-3 in the women’s race to lead the Cavs to the first team title in the programs’ three-plus years of existence. Michels, a transfer from Concordia-Irvine who was named the Cascade Collegiate Conference Runner of the Week two weeks ago, clocked a time of 22:48.90 over the rolling, six-kilometer course near the Clackamas River to finish second to Linfield’s Marci Klimek (22:23.80). Michels crossed the finish line 11 seconds ahead of Scheese, who was timed in 22:59.60. The Cavaliers’ third-place finisher was Alice Taylor, who finished 12th overall in a time of 23:49.90.
“Linsie was very controlled and ran a smart race today,” said CU coach Randy Dalzell. “Andria ran the best race I have ever seen her run. She really stepped up to finish No. 3 overall. This is the first team title in the history of the program, and for it to occur at a meet of this caliber shows our team has some depth and strength that it hasn’t had before. This is the only meet of the season in which the women will run the 6K distance, and it was a good test to see if they could extend their effort over the extra 1,000 meters.”
The Concordia women totaled 73 points, eight points better than runner-up Whitman, an NCAA Division III member, and 11 points better than NCAA Division I Portland State. NCAA Division III foes Linfield and Lewis & Clark finished 4-5. Corban, whose top three runners finished 15-17-18, placed sixth in the team standings. Oregon Tech, led by Rachael Novak’s ninth-place showing, finished seventh. Northwest Christian finished ninth.
The Cavalier men had a much closer time of it, narrowly outpointing host Lewis & Clark, 49-50, in the team scoring. Portland State (87) finished third and was followed by Linfield (120) and Whitman (139). Individually, CU finished an impressive 1-2-3 in the eight-kilometer race, with Eric Burck (25:07.20) leading teammates Martin Romero-Clark (25:26.70) and Charles Cummings (25:50.00) across the finish line.
The key for the Cavaliers, according to Dalzell, was fifth-place finisher Dylan Zitzer, who placed 22nd overall in a time of 26:55.50, just three seconds and one spot behind teammate Chris Grever (26:52.60).
“Zitzer really stepped up to make up for the loss of Jessy Brown, who rolled an ankle and didn’t compete today,” said Dalzell. “Dylan did a great job as our No. 5 man. Hopefully Jessy Brown will be back to fill in the middle gaps in the next few weeks.”
Added Dalzell, “Our top three guys ran as well as any team in the nation could expect their top three to run. This was an exciting win for our men’s team. It was a close-fought meet against a quality field. Lewis & Clark is highly rated in its region.”
The CCC had two other top 15 finishers in the men’s meet – Corban’s Caleb Goins, who finished 10th in a time of 26:22.80, and Oregon Tech’s Kory Humberston, who placed 12th in a time of 26:32.50. In team scoring, Corban finished sixth, Oregon Tech eighth and Northwest Christian ninth.