LA GRANDE, Ore. – The Eastern Oregon University women’s and men’s cross country teams ran well against NCAA Div. 2 opponent, Northwest Nazarene University, Saturday.
The Mountaineers in their lone home event had solid individual finishes, but could not overcome the larger NNU squads.
Eastern Oregon’s Karlee Coffey was two seconds off the first place finisher, Jaci Puga, on the women’s side. Coffey continues to have a phenomenal season and came across the finish line Saturday with a time of, 10:57.54.
"Karlee raced tough and lost a close one over the last few meters, despite running the third fastest time in course history," EOU head coach Ben Welch said.
EOU’s Sarah Hanchett and Talissa Baldovino came in seventh and eighth in the 27-participant field.
Hanchett finished with a time of 11:45.44 and Baldovino crossed the line at 11:53.74. Eastern’s Kendra Stone and Sierra Engler were right behind with times of 12:17.15 and 12:21.65 respectively.
DJ Flores was the top men’s finisher for the Mountaineers Saturday. The freshman’s time of 15:55.33 was close behind Northwest Nazarene’s Barak Watson’s 15:39.19 finish. NNU’s Matt Stark came in second with a time of 15:40.94.
Forrest Lumpry was Eastern Oregon’s second finisher and came in fourth-place overall with a time of 16:00.86. EOU’s Terry Johnsen’s time of 16:05.64 placed him sixth in the 38-man field. Kody Coxen came in tenth and fourth for the Mountaineers with a time of 16:17.45.
"Our odds of coming out on top were hurt when Devin White, running with Flores at the time, went down about 3,000 meters into the 5,000 meter race with an ankle injury," Welch said. "The NNU runners took the race out very hard and for a while it looked like we might reel them in, but they ran out of gas late in the race."
Eastern Oregon will hope for far-less windy conditions Thursday in Caldwell, Idaho for The College of Idaho Open. College of Idaho is leading the conference on the women’s side, and ranked second on the men’s side. EOU is ranked second and third respectively.