Harriers receive needed tune-up at ISU
Heading into his team’s first meet of the year, Gregg Gensel, head coach of Utah State University’s cross country team said he viewed Saturday’s meet as a tune-up for future meets.
It turned out to be a successful tune-up for the Aggies as both the men’s and women’s teams finished in second place at the Idaho State Invitational, held Saturday in Pocatello, Idaho.
“We just wanted to see how they handled the competition, and that’s all we used this meet for,” Gensel said. “This is just a see-where-you’re-at type of meet.”
Weber State University captured both the men’s and women’s titles of the five-team race, outdistancing the Aggies 15 points to 60 on the women’s side and 23 points to 53 on the men’s side (lowest score being the victor).
Leading the way for the Aggie men was sophomore Mike Nielson, who finished the approximately six-mile course in 18:40, good enough for second place – just one second behind meet champion Corbin Talley of WSU.
Unfortunately for the Aggie men, they entered Saturday’s meet shorthanded with Trevor Ball recovering from an injury and Steve Prescott and David Kunnas battling sickness, and thus were unable to show their potential, both Gensel and Nielson said.
The Aggies were also without the services of one of their top runners from a year ago – Slovakia native Dusan Hlubocky. Gensel said Hlubocky will probably return to action in USU’s next meet as he continues to adjust to training in Logan.
“I think the people on the team know the potential that the team has, and Saturday wasn’t a good showing of that, despite the injuries and Dusan out and sickness,” Nielson said. “But I think [not being satisfied] is a good thing because I think we’ll use that as a positive influence to help us improve.”
Aggie Mitch Zundel also finished in the top five, placing fourth with a time of 18:54. Prescott, Clark Bryner and Kunnas also finished in the top 30 for the Aggies.
Like the USU men of a year ago, the women’s team was able to pack together as the top nine Aggie women finished within a minute of each other.
Paced by Christi Howell’s sixth-place finish (11:03), Carol Cabanillas, Lida Clapier, Sheena Curtis, Tiffany Strickland, Emily Prestwich, Melanie McClellan-March, Sharee Hatch and Billie Winter all finished in the top 30 to power the Aggies to a second-place finish.
“They [the women] still have some improving to do, but they took a big step Saturday,” Gensel said.
Not only were the Aggie women able to improve on last year’s finish at the ISU Invitational (fourth in 2001), they were able to meet their goal heading into the meet, Howell said.
“We wanted our top five to finish within 30 seconds of each other, and we did,” she said. “That was our goal going into the meet.”
-Jasonwturner@cc.usu.edu