X-country heads to Pre-Nationals
The Utah State University cross country team will send its top seven runners to compete in the Pre-Nationals meet Saturday in Terre Haute, Ind.
Utah State cross country coach Gregg Gensel said he expects to be competitive in every race the team enters.
“As a team, we’ll go in thinking that we can win,” he said. “I’m not trying to be cocky, but we try to be positive.”
The team has been ranked as high as 29th in the nation. This week, Gensel said, “we’re 31st or so,” but he expects to move up in the rankings following the Pre-National meet.
The team has competed in three meets so far this year. The men’s and women’s teams both took second place at their first meet – the Idaho State Invitational Aug. 31. Then both teams took first over a field of 21 teams at the UC Riverside Invitational.
In USU’s most recent race, the Notre Dame Invitational, the men took fourth place while the women finished ninth.
“We’re going to run in a race where some of the teams above us are there,” Gensel said.
He said he expects to improve in the rankings by beating some of those teams, and moving higher than those teams who don’t come to the meet.
Gensel said his top three runners on the women’s side this year are sophomore Lida Clapier, and juniors Audrey Golighty and Carol Cabanillas. On the men’s side, his top three are junior Mike Nielson and seniors Steve Prescott and Mitch Zundel.
Clapier said, “[The team’s goals are] to win conference and make it to nationals. We have to [finish in] the top four at regionals, which is really hard because we have two of the top teams in the country in our region [BYU and Colorado].”
She said if they finish fifth or sixth in the region, they would have a good chance of making it as an at-large bid.
Clapier said she will not be able to compete at Pre-Nationals because of a stress fracture. She said if she were to run this week, she would not be able to finish the season because of her injury. If it is allowed to heal, she should be able to compete at the next meet and run the rest of the season.
On the men’s team, both Nielson and Zundel have been honored as a USU Athlete of the Week.
When asked about Saturday’s meet, Zundel said the Pre-National meet will be “by far the biggest meet so far.”
Zundel said he was disappointed the team moved down in the rankings last week.
“We got bumped by a team we had beaten,” he said. “The polls haven’t done us any justice this year.”
He said the meet at Indiana State “will be a determinate” in the rankings.
Gensel said while the top seven runners will go to Pre-Nationals, the other runners will travel to Idaho State University to compete in a meet.
He said there are 15 men on the team this year, and 16 women. The men run an 8,000-meter race and the women run 5,000 meters, except for at Nationals where the men run 10,000 meters and the women run 6,000.
Come Saturday, the team will run at the national championship site, but not the exact course used for Nationals, Gensel said.
“It’s a good place to go,” he said. “It’s at sea level and it will be good weather for us to run and compete in.”
Gensel said he ran cross country in college and enjoys both the individual and the team components of running.
“It’s fun because it’s an individual sport,” he said. “You don’t have to win every race. On top of all that, there’s the team effort where you can win championships like the men’s team did last spring.”
– royburton@cc.usu.edu