PORTLAND, Ore.—The College of Idaho cross country teams pulled a sweep of sorts as the top conference teams in both the men’s and women’s races at the Concordia/adidas XC Classic held at Fernhill Park on Saturday.

Taking advantage of the short-handed Concordia squad, No. 21-ranked The College of Idaho scored a meet-low 46 points to claim the men’s team title. Concordia tallied 61 points while Simon Fraser finished in third with 78 points. Southern Oregon finished in eighth with 187 points and Northwest Christian ninth with 215 points to round out the CCC representatives.

Unattached runners took the top two spots in the men’s race with Rayan Guerni clocking in at 24 minutes, 28 seconds for the 8,000-meter course to win the race by eight seconds over Matthew Clowes (2nd) and Northwest University’s Seth Bridges (3rd).

C of I’s Greg Montgomery was the first team scorer to cross the line with a 24:52 to finish in fifth place overall. Concordia’s Ben Foubert scored a second-place result (8th overall) with a 25:09 while teammate Andrew Landstrom placed sixth (13th overall) with a 25:39 to give the Cavs two top-10 scorers.

The Yotes, meanwhile, placed three in the top 10 with Andrew Hughill and Jason Hunt joining Montgomery. Hughill toured the layout in 25:34 for fifth and Hunt in 25:44 for ninth. The final two scorers for the C of I team weren’t far behind as Kiprotich Langat and Sean Saxton cracked the top 20 in 15th and 16th place, respectively.

With Marcus Nelson, a 21st-place finisher at the 2010 NAIA National Championships, sidelined midway through the race, Concordia was down to just five athletes. The remaining trio finished within 14 seconds of each other with Cory Pena, Jasen Brown and Brandon Schmuckley finishing in under 26:30. Pena led the group in 14th place (22nd overall) after covering the course in 26:12 and was followed by Brown and Schmuckley who crossed in 19th and 20th place, respectively.

Freshman Nick Lopez paced the Beacons from Northwest Christian by finishing in 21st place after recording a time of 26:28, more than a minute ahead of the next Beacon, Michael Bellamy in 42nd place with a 27:34.

With the top runners from Southern Oregon competing against in California, David Sherman led the Raiders in Portland with a 27:01to finish in 30th place.

PORTLAND, Ore.—With three of the top 10 teams in the NAIA in attendance as well as programs from NCAA DI and DII, the Coyotes of The College of Idaho placed second overall  behind Simon Fraser with 77 points to lead all CCC teams at the Concordia/adidas Classic held at Fernhill Park on Saturday.

Simon Fraser, a former NAIA power now competing at NAIA DII, took the team crown with a meet-low 65-point total. College of Idaho, ranked No. 8 in the NAIA, placed second with 77 points to defeat the University of Portland by five points and No. 3-ranked Northwest Christian by 10 points. Concordia, ranked No. 9 in the NAIA, scored 94 points for fifth place.   

Concordia alumni Andria Scheese took first place overall by defeating the 116-runner field with a time of 17 minutes, 22 seconds. Five seconds back, Simon Fraser’s Jessica Smith scored a runner-up finish by completing the 5,000-meter course in 17:27.

The Yotes placed all five scores within a minute of each other as Sora Klopfenstein (7th) and Hillary Holt (8th) cracked the top 10 at 18:02 and 18:06. Sarah Johnson (18th) quickly followed at 18:30 and moments later Kayloni Perry (21st, 18:39) and Kaitlyn Gerard (23rd, 18:41) crossed the line for the team’s fourth and fifth finisher.

Northwest Christian and Concordia both had a stronger top three than the Yotes but failed to match the strength in the final two positions as Perry and Gerard finished ahead of CU’s and NCU’s fourth competitor.

NCU went 3-6-9 with Brittany Peterson, Ally Manley and Stephanie Hescock leading the way while Gina Paletta, Lauren Moran and Junia Limage gave the Cavaliers a 2-10-11 result.

Paletta finished third overall at 17:46, one second ahead of Northwest Christian’s Brittany Peterson to claim the top finisher by a Cascade Collegiate Conference representative.  

Southern Oregon and Northwest University were also in action on Saturday with the Raiders placing seventh with 182 points and the Eagles ninth with 202 points. Seena Frantz paced the SOU contingent with a strong fifth-place result at 17:58 while Joanna Sowers, a freshman, placed 28th at 18:46 to lead NU.