Cougs sweep field to win West Coast Conference cross country championships...
SPOKANE VALLEY--In the inaugural race contested at The Course Spokane Valley, the West Coast's first dedicated cross country venue, Washington State's Rosemary Longisa (photo courtesy WSU Athletics) and Solomon Kipchoge rolled to convincing individual victories to lead the Cougars to team wins at the West Coast Conference championships Saturday morning.
As expected, the WSU women were in a close race with defending champion and host Gonzaga, but prevailed by a 38-43 margin, placing four scorers in the top ten to Gonzaga's three.
On the men's side, Washington State placed all five scorers in the top ten to easily take the team title with 26 points, comfortably ahead of Portland's 50 and Gonzaga's 58 points.
WOMEN'S RECAP...
Gonzaga's Jessica Frydenlund, Logan Hofstee and Willow Collins positioned themselves at the front with the Cougars' Longisa and Zenah Cheptoo through the first kilometer, which they crossed in 2:55.
Past the 3.5 kilometer mark, Frydenlund, the Anacortes native, started to drop off, while Hofstee, running in her hometown of Spokane Valley, stuck with Longisa and Cheptoo.
Over the last 2.5 kilometers, Longisa opened up a gap on Hofstee, while Cheptoo started to drop back.
In the end, Longisa was victorious in 19:35, with Hofstee second in 19:47, and Cheptoo third in 20:02.
Frydenlund was Gonzaga's second runner across in fifth in 20:18, followed twelve seconds later by teammate Willow Collins in seventh.
Caroline Jepkorir in eighth (20:36) and Nicole Bissell, a Spokane Valley native in ninth (20:37), were the Cougars' third and fourth runners in, and so it came down to a race between Gonzaga's fourth and fifth runners and Washington State's fifth runner.
Nina Yeats was 13th in 20:47, while Alexi Fogo was 16th in 20:49 to complete Gonzaga's five scorers. Kylah Madariaga from Wenatchee was WSU's final scorer in 17th in 20:50.
Right behind Madariaga were Gonzaga's Camille Broadbent in 18th in 20:50, and Anna Grabowski in 20th in 20:55.
To show how close the team race between the Cougs and the Zags was, if Madariaga hadn't finished in front of Broadbent and Grabowski, Gonzaga is most likely the team champions.
Washington State's 1-5 split was 75 seconds, while Gonzaga's 1-5 split was 62 seconds.
Seattle University, who was in the Western Athletic Conference last year, got a rude welcome to the WCC, finishing 11th in the 12-team field with 283 points.
Azalea Groleau was their top finisher in 27th in 21:19.
The win by the Cougar women marked the first conference championship won by the school in cross country. For the men, it was their fifth conference championship, but their first since 1975, when they were in the Pac-8 Conference.
MEN'S RECAP...
Washington State All-American Evans Kurui (Paul Merca file photo) wasn't messing around at the start, taking the field through the first kilometer like he was racing the mile on The Podium's 200 meter banked oval west of The Course in downtown Spokane, going through in 2:19.
Only his teammates Solomon Kipchoge and Vincent Koech took the bait, and they stayed steps behind. In fact, only Yakima native Jonas Price of Portland, and Logan Schwartz of Gonzaga broke 2:30 for the first kilometer.
The three Cougar Kenyans controlled the front through the first 3.5 kilometers, though from the team race standpoint, a big move was made behind the trio, as Josphat Meli and Oregon transfer Kutoven Stevens moved up into the top ten.
At the 6k mark, the Cougars had all five scorers in the top seven, with Portland's Price and Gonzaga's Bryce Cerkowniak the only ones breaking the group. Kipchoge took control of the race, putting an eight second lead over Kurui, who might have paid the price for his front running first kilometer.
Kipchoge ran to victory in 22:33. 25 seconds ahead of Kurui's 22:58.
Portland's Price hung one for third in 23:16, just ahead of Logan Schwartz of Gonzaga's 23:35.
Josphat Meli was WSU's third runner across, finishing fifth in 23:36. Kutoven Stevens and Vincent Koech both faded but hung on to finish in the top ten.
In what was perhaps the real story behind Washington State's team victory, Stevens was their fourth runner in 23:43, and Koech was the Cougs' final scorer in tenth in 23:46. That gave the Cougars a 1-5 split of 73 seconds, a big improvement over their 1-5 split at the Nuttycombe meet in Wisconsin two weeks ago.
At Nuttycombe, the Cougs ran a 1-5 split of 86 seconds, while they improved 13 seconds Saturday morning.
Behind Schwartz, Bryce Cerkowniak was Gonzaga's second runner in 11th in 23:47. Samy Anderson and Mason Kissell were 13th and 14th in 23:52 and 23:53. Ryan Mitchell closed out the Zag scorers in 16th in 23:53.
The Zags ran an outstanding 1-5 split of 18 seconds, but weren't able to counter the Cougs' ability to place five in the top ten.
Washington State's 26 points easily outdistanced second place Portland's 50, while Gonzaga finished with 58 points. The difference in the team race for second was that Portland put three runners in the top ten, as opposed to Gonzaga's one.
SeattleU was tenth in the ten team field, scoring 298 points. Roman Radecki was their top finisher in 56th in 25:35.
EAGLES SEVENTH AND EIGHTH AT BIG SKY CHAMPIONSHIPS...
In Bozeman, Montana, the Eastern Washington men's and women's cross country teams wrapped up competition at the Big Sky Championships, with the men finishing seventh and the women's squad taking eighth.
The men totaled 204 points, led by Conner Wirth (photo courtesy EWU Athletics) who crossed the line in 37th place with a time of 25:48. Grady Fournier followed closely in 38th (25:54), with Owen Higgins (45th, 26:04), Charlie Ledwith (54th, 26:34), and Lucas Spurling (55th, 26:37) rounding out Eastern's scoring five. They ran a 1-5 split of 49 seconds.
Number 7 Northern Arizona put six runners in the top ten, led by winner Colin Sahlman's 23:41 over 8k to take the team title with 20 points.
On the women's side, the Eagles tallied 224 points. Sara Sanders paced the team with a 31st-place finish in 17:52 over 5k. She was followed by Rylee Brandon (38th, 18:01), Nattie Ruzauskas (57th, 18:27), Adrienne Root (58th, 18:28), and Emma Tomlinson (61st, 18:33) to complete Eastern's scoring effort. Their 1-5 split was 41 seconds.
17th ranked Northern Arizona, led by winner Hayley Burns, who ran 16:06, almost scored a perfect 15, scoring 16 points.
For all five of Washington's NCAA Division I schools, the next major test is the NCAA West Regional meet in Sacramento.
NOTE: The West Coast Conference, Big Sky Conference, and the sports information offices of Washington State, Gonzaga, and Eastern Washington contributed to this report.
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