Eagles and Cougars win Clash of the Inland Northwest cross country meet...

Paul Limpf of Eastern Washington and Allix Lee-Painter of Idaho took individual honors at the first-ever Clash of the Inland Northwest Saturday in Spokane, Wash., at Mead High School.

The EWU men took the team title with 30 points with Washington State University second with 36, the Bulldogs third with 72 and Idaho fourth with 88 over the 6000-meter course.

WSU claimed the women's title over 4000 meters with 25 points followed by Idaho with 51, EWU with 79 and Gonzaga with 83.

Individually, Limpf won the men’s race with a time of 19:33.6. Sophomore Alex Smyth (left, #283/photo courtesy Eastern Washington University media relations) finished second with a time of 19:42.1.

In the 4,000-meter race, Painter took the victory, running 15:20.4.

WSU junior VanDeBrake (Yakima, Wash.) took third place in the women's 4k race in a time of 15-minutes, 43.4 seconds. Cougars Michelly Foley (freshman, Prineville, Ore.), Sara Trané (junior, Pixbo, Sweden), Lisa Egami (junior, Coquitlam, British Columbia), Amanda Andrews (sophomore, Gig Harbor, Wash.), and Marisa Sandoval (junior, Los Alamos, NM) followed in the next five places.

"The women looked pretty good," Cougar Head Coach Jason Drake said. "As usual we like to size up the freshmen a little bit early in the season and Michelly Foley was probably the story of the day for the women; a freshman up there in the first college race looked great just chilling with the older women runners. That was nice. On the men's side it was the same thing. Both freshmen Jono Lafler and Justin Englund looked good running up at the front of the pack with the older guys. It went well for both the men and women. Nice to get the season started and get a few scores out of the way against the Inland Northwest schools."

First year Gonzaga coach Pat Tyson applauded the efforts of Brett Withers (8th, 19:59.1) and Laura Volcheff (15th, 16:21.5) for setting the bench mark.

"Brett ran against some good runners. He could be an All-American. Laura set a nice bench mark for the women to be attached to. We need to get four or five others with her and close the gap a little bit if the women are to be successful."

All three Inland Northwest schools will run in the Sundodger Invitational in two weeks in Seattle at Lincoln Park.

The complete results of the men's race can be accessed here, while the women's results are available here.

NOTE--The sports information offices of Gonzaga, Washington State, and Eastern Washington all contributed to this report.