SALEM, Ore. – Lewis-Clark State Cross Country raced Saturday at the Willamette Invitational and each team earned a second-place finish. Both races were led by fifth-year seniors in Emily Adams and Cole Olsen. The No. 5 LC State men and the No. 10 women faced a couple of strong conference opponents and the Warriors knew they had their work cut out for them at the scenic park in Salem.
“Exciting day here in Salem, with both men and women competing at the 46th annual Charles Bowles Invitational,” Head Coach Mike Collins said. “Coming into this meet, I always like treating it like a national championship type of meet. We try go through some of the same protocols so we can get used to that with hopefully the assumption of going to nationals. I feel really good about our performances today, I don’t think we performed at our best, but based off the results we have and where we are at, missing people, some injuries here and there, that I know we are definitely going to get better and hopefully this will also provide some motivation for both teams that if they want to qualify for nationals, they are going to have to beat some teams that beat us today.”
THE WOMEN
The women, traveling without two of their top five runners, took second behind conference opponent No. 17 Southern Oregon with a team score of 77.
LC State was led by Adams who placed fifth with a sub-19 time of 18:58. The second Warrior to cross the line was sophomore Geraldin Correa who finished ninth with a time of 19:13, followed by senior Rylee Brown in 16th at 19:39. Brooklyn Shell stepped up as the fourth LC runner with a 19
th-place finish (19:55), and freshman Rainey Gallup rounded out the top five Warriors, taking 29th (20:25). Abigail Peightal finished 32nd (20:38) and Abigail Gorton and Grace McCormick followed, finishing 36th (20:47) and 37th (20:49), respectively. Sophomore Madison Howe finished in 42nd (21:07) and freshman Maureen Kipkorir took 52nd (21:44).
“I thought our women ran extremely well today,” Collins said. “We are missing two of our top gals today and there are a couple more with some injuries and illness. I thought today would be challenging to finish in the top three, yet alone for us to finish second like we did. Southern Oregon’s women are really good. That’s a team today that looked like a top-four team at nationals and, excitingly from my standpoint, I think we can run with them.
“We have got to have a few girls that can bridge up the gaps and hopefully getting Maja (Plaznik) and Callie (Johnson) in there and some more senior leadership and experience will also help. Right now, we are into a core part of our training regime, we have a really, really tough week coming, and we will get another recovery week before our home meet. We have a lot of NCAA Division I teams and other schools coming to our home course so we look to protect it, and it’s one that also tends to perform well when it comes to having some fast times and kids race it well.”
THE MEN
The men also placed second behind a conference opponent in No. 17 Oregon Tech with a team score of 63.
Olsen led the men with a fifth-place finish and a time of 24:56. Two more fifth-year seniors followed Olsen and continued the “Three C’s” train. Clayton VanDyke was second for the warriors with a 10
th-place finish and a time of 25:14, and Chase Borrow followed in 19th (25:40). Brycen Brown was the fourth Warrior and placed 22nd (25:48), and sophomore Carter Gordon rounded out the top five spot for the Warriors with a time of 25:57, placing 26th. Connor Turpin finished 28th (25:58) and freshman Brycen Kempton placed 31st (26:00). Dillon Dawson came in at 44th (26:39) and Cooper Carlson followed in 46th (27:00). Griffin Parsells and Brady Nelsen finished 49th and 50th, respectively, with times of 27:11 and 27:14. David Phillis took 53rd (27:18), followed by Conner May in 62nd (27:47) and Alejandro Martinez, who took 68th (28:22). Martinez was followed by Tristan Wood in 80th (29:00) and Luke Sellman in 95th (30:09).
“I really thought that the men might have a chance of winning this meet today,” Collins stated. “I knew Southern Oregon was going to be extremely tough, OIT had a down meet a couple weeks ago so wasn’t really sure about them but they were our biggest challenge a year ago, so you had to respect them and they came in today and ran really, really well. I thought Cole and Clayton did a nice job today, despite the leaders getting directed off course and losing some time. I don’t think that changed the results overall but that does affect their times just a little bit.
“We had some other guys that really stepped up today that kind of closed down the gaps. It was nice to have Chase and Connor Turpin back in the lineup today. I thought they did a nice job of helping to fill in, and we have got to be a deep team in order to do well and I think today showed our depth. Getting a chance to experience these kinds of races will make us better down the road, so the next time we have one, the mistakes we made today we can correct.”
Warrior Cross Country will race again on Saturday, Oct.16 when it hosts the Inland Empire Championships at the LC State Cross Country Trail in the Lewiston Orchards.
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