Pair of 8th place finishes for Aggie cross country
Close, but no cigar.
That’s the all-too-familiar phrase describing USU men’s and women’s cross country outing to the NCAA Mountain Regional Championships Saturday. Both teams finished in the top 10 but fell short of qualifying for nationals.
The Aggie women were led by senior Amy Egan, who finished 33rd overall against runners from 17 other schools. The women were the No. 10 seed coming into the meet, held at Schneiter’s Riverside Golf Course in Ogden, but finished in eighth place to cap off one of their strongest performances of the season.
“Our women improved,” Head Coach Gregg Gensel said. “They ran better as a team than I expected them to.”
Egan finished the 6K course with a time of 21:57.1. Senior Stacie Dorius wasn’t far behind, finishing at 22:11.07 to take 40th overall. The two seniors led the team, as they have all season, and finished within three minutes of first-place runner Sally Kipyego of Texas Tech University. It was Colorado State, however, that ended up taking home first place, followed closely by Northern Arizona and Brigham Young University, who took second and third place, respectively.
Three other Aggies finished within a minute of Egan’s team-best time – junior Caroline Berry, freshman Alicia Holt and junior Vanessa Hawkins.
While the women’s eighth-place finish didn’t buy them a ticket to nationals, it was enough to get the best of in-state rival University of Utah and conference rival University of Nevada, both of which had beaten USU earlier in the season.
On the men’s side, the Aggies were led by junior Seth Wold, who finished 39th overall against runners from 15 other schools. Wold, who was named the Western Athletic Conference Men’s Athlete of the Year, finished the 10K race with a time of 31:53.8, just two minutes behind first-place runner Lopez Lomong from Northern Arizona.
The men’s team came into the meet seeded No. 7, but also finished in eighth place. All seven of the teams finishing in front of the Aggie men were ranked in the top 30 in the country.
“You can’t really argue too much about that,” Gensel said. “You’ve got to be happy when they run that well.”
Wold’s performance was backed by impressive showings from freshmen Nick Bolinder, who placed 46th with a time of 32:16.2, and Chio Lopez, who finished in 32:29.3. Lopez, who was named the WAC Freshman of the Year, placed 50th.
It was the University of Colorado that claimed the regional crown, with the University of Texas-El Paso and Northern Arizona coming in at second and third place.
With the top two teams from all nine regions going to nationals and only 13 other at-large bids, the season is over for Utah State. The women’s team will lose seniors Egan, Dorius and Becky Bostwick, while the men’s team is not graduating a single member of the team.
“I’m happy with the results,” Gensel said. “They ran their hearts out, and I’m proud of them for the great season they had.”
– jackson.olsen@aggiemail.usu.edu