CHENEY, Wash. – Lewis-Clark State Cross Country started its season on Friday at the Northwest Clash hosted by Eastern Washington. Between the field of mainly Division I programs and a hilly course, both teams were physically and mentally challenged but were able to prove their strength in the end. The women raced a 4k and earned a fourth-place finish with a score of 109. The men finished the 6k race in fifth place with a score of 115.
"I feel really good about today. It was a great opportunity to get to race and I think with our mentality going into today, everyone was motivated and energized to actually get into a race and so that in itself was very important to us," Head Coach
Mike Collins said. "With the results of the races, we finished up the day and looked really good, I'm excited about those results and I think my athletes are as well. We always talk about things we want to improve on after each race and things that we did well and want to continue to do, and so we definitely have some of those, but in general, I think it was a very positive day."
THE WOMEN
On the women's side, senior
Rylee Brown led the Warriors with a 17
th-place finish and a time of 15:18. Sophomore
Geraldin Correa followed and rounded out the top 20 with a time of 15:22 and senior
Maja Plaznik placed 23
rd with a time of 15:30.
Emily Adams and
Callie Johnson had a photo-finish, with Adams crossing the line in 28
th (15:44.3) and Johnson 29
th (15:44.5). Junior
Brooklyn Shell ran a time of 15:52 to finish as the sixth Warrior and claim a spot at 34
th. Freshmen
Grace McCormick and
Rainey Gallup made their Warrior debuts with a 47th-place finish from McCormick (16:13) and a spot at 51
st for Gallup (16:26).
Abigail Peightal placed 52
nd with a time of 16:30 and
Kelsey Henry followed in 69
th (17:51), as did
Madison Howe in 70
th (18:23). Freshman
Maureen Kipkorir finished 71
st with a 19:17.
"Our women went into today with a lot of returners and were pretty much full strength minus just a couple of girls, so we are hopefully going to stay healthy there," Collins said. "We packed well, girls did exactly what I wanted them to do when it came to packing, we kept our gaps nice and small. If we can continue to do that and continue to improve, this team is going to be very good. So, that's very exciting, we just got to take care of little things right now.
"With the gaps so small on the women's side, we had Rylee out front today, but I think that could be interchangeable with these girls depending on the course and the day and I think they are just going to make each other better. So, that's encouraging as well, and we talked about checking our egos at the door earlier this season and I think these young ladies have bought into that. We aren't going to worry about who is where but that everyone is doing their best to do their job. So, we've got a women's team that is tougher than I think a lot of people might be giving us credit for right now."
THE MEN
For the men, freshman
Brycen Kempton had a strong collegiate debut as the top finisher for the Warriors with a 17
th-place finish and a time of 19:10. Senior
Connor Turpin followed in 23
rd with a time of 19:21 and freshmen
Griffin Parsells and
Brycen Brown made their debuts as well and crossed the line in 40
th (19:43) and 43
rd (19:48), respectively. Sophomore
Carter Gordon finished 50
th with a time of 20:06.
Dillon Dawson ran a time of 20:22 for a spot at 57
th, followed shortly by
David Phillis in 58
th (20:22.1) and
Cooper Carlson in 71
st (20:52).
Alejandro Martinez placed 94
th (22:18) and
Tristan Wood ran a 22:28 to put him at 95
th.
"Coming into today, it was tough to evaluate," Collins said. "We are missing four of our guys that ran at the national meet last spring, so that meant that some guys were going to have to step up, either returners or new people and we had a little of both. Our top runner today was freshman Brycen from Post Falls and he went and stayed out as the lead of our team today and held on really well, so that's encouraging.
"Right behind him was
Connor Turpin who is really just a grinder, you don't want to get in his way once he gets rolling and that's what he did. I think the last lap on this course today, he passed more guys than anyone else in the race, I think he passed 14 or 15 guys. That kind of racing and that kind of mentality, looks really good and considering Connor was our fourth guy last year at Nationals and having other guys around him, including Brycen, I think is very encouraging on the guys side. It'll be interesting to see what happens when our other guys that were out today are back in the mix but a nice start to the race season. In general, we had a young group today with three of our seniors out so a little bit of a different dynamic but hopefully we will have everyone in the mix next time."
Warrior Cross Country is back in action on Sept. 17 at the Eastern Oregon Invitational in La Grande, Ore. to face a handful of Cascade Conference opponents.
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