Cougar cross country ventures to Pre-Nationals in Oklahoma

Because the again half of the season begins, the Cougs look forward with large aspirations

The highest two Cougar girls made up a mixed 150 spots within the final 5 kilometers of the race. These comebacks guided the workforce to a fifth-place end in an enormous race.

On Oct. 15, WSU cross nation competed in Stillwater, Oklahoma with greater than 20 different faculties from across the nation within the Pre-Nationwide Races.

The cross nation season has a really totally different schedule from most sports activities, with solely six races which are run by nearly all of the workforce over the course of the virtually three months the season lasts. These races might be break up into two halves, with the primary three races being competitively unimportant races the place the main target is on preparation and the final three races being the clearly essential Pac-12 Championships, NCAA Regionals and Nationwide Championships.

On the Pre-Nationals race, Cougar males took residence twelfth, with the lead efficiency from Brian Barsaiya taking residence twenty fifth place with a time of 24 minutes and eight seconds. Different Cougs within the high 55 had been Kelvin Limo and Leif Swanson, with instances of 24:31 and 24:36 respectively.

The ladies’s workforce confirmed out on their greatest stage up to now this yr and no one did it higher than Alaina Stone Boggs. Stone Boggs began additional again than anticipated and was in forty fourth on the one-kilometer mark, however over the remaining 5 kilometers she climbed up 40 spots and completed the race in 4th place with a time of 20:37 for the 6k race.

Nonetheless lacking a number of high runners as a consequence of damage, the Cougs would wish standout performances from extra than simply Stone-Boggs to have an actual probability at competing on this race they usually acquired these performances. Caroline Jerotich, who additionally had a troublesome begin to the race, managed to enhance 110 spots after the 1k mark to complete the race in fifteenth place with a time of 21:15.

These performances, together with robust races from Neema Kimtai (forty seventh, 21:44), Pietra Da Silva (71st, 22:03) and Samantha Boyle (136th, 22:52) took the Cougs to a Fifth-place end. To complete Fifth in a race as big because the Pre-Nationals are is an enormous deal and it bodes particularly nicely that that they had one in every of their greatest performances as a workforce with the Pac-12 Championship taking place on Friday.

With the NCAA Pre-Nationals race now of their rearview, the Cougars are transferring ahead to the again half of the season. The Cougs race subsequent in Riverside, California on the aforementioned championship races. Getting into as an underdog in opposition to a number of nationally ranked groups in each races, the Cougars will hope to rise to the event and exceed the expectations outsiders have of them. Followers can tune in to look at the Championship race on the Pac-12 Community beginning with the ladies’s race at 8:40 a.m., adopted by the boys at 9:40 a.m. on Friday.