A bitter sweet day for x-country
With six of the nation’s top 15 teams in its region, the No. 26 Utah State men’s cross country team knew that qualifying for the NCAA Championship meet out of its region would be difficult.
Unfortunately for the Aggies, they found out just how difficult it would be Saturday at the Mountain Regional meet in Albuquerque, N.M. Utah State finished in eighth-place, and in all likelihood, was eliminated from contention for an at-large bid to Nationals.
“All year long we’ve been ranked seventh or eighth in our region, but we felt like we could do better,” said USU Head Coach Gregg Gensel. “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be for some reason.”
Like the Aggie men, the USU women also finished in eighth place, in a race that was dominated by No. 1-ranked and defending National Champion BYU. The University of Colorado, ranked No. 3, captured the other automatic bid to Nationals from the region as the Lady Buffaloes finished in second place.
On the men’s side, No. 8 Northern Arizona University and No. 3 Colorado secured automatic bids to Nationals, with the Lumberjacks upsetting the defending Mountain Region champs for the team crown.
Heading into the race, Aggie Mike Nielson said he felt USU would have to break seed (USU was ranked No. 7 in the region) and finished in the top six to secure an at-large bid to Nationals.
Unfortunately for USU, other than NAU and Colorado flip-flopping, the top six teams in the region held their seeds, in a region Gensel said is as strong as its been in a long time.
“At one point this season, our region had eight teams ranked in the top 30,” he said. “I would hate to have to be the people picking the teams going to Nationals, because there’s going to be some teams at the National meet that are not as good as the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-place teams from our region.”
Leading the way for the Aggies was senior Mitch Zundel, who finished in 14th place with a time of 30:43. Nielson (43rd), David Danley (44th), Steve Prescott (49th), and Ryan Griffeth (53rd) were the other Aggie runners who factored into the team score.
While the Aggie men didn’t meet their goal, Gensel said their times were still very fast. He said Zundel told him after the race that USU’s top six finishers ran a faster time than USU’s top runner (Prescott) from a year ago.
Saturday’s field just proved to be that good, Gensel said.
“I am disappointed in the outcome of the meet, but I’m certainly not disappointed in any of the guys’ efforts,” he said. “They ran as hard as they could have.”
On the women’s side, Gensel said he was hopeful the Aggies would finish in the top 10. USU was able to do just that, and was two points away from overtaking seventh-place Montana State University (219 points to 220).
“I feel really good, because I felt eighth [place] was pretty good for them,” he said. “They ran well today. They packed together, and finished better than I probably thought they would.”
Junior Audrey Golightly paced the Aggie women, finishing the 6-kilometer course in 22:17, and good enough for 32nd place. Melanie Marek (34th), Lida Clapier (49th), Christi Howell (50th) and Kristen Coombs (60th) rounded out USU’s point total – all finishing within 40 seconds of Golightly’s time.
If it wasn’t for nagging injuries throughout the course of the season, Gensel said the Aggie women would have even finished higher.
“The problem is we had too many people that were coming back from injuries, that couldn’t keep [their pace] going,” he said.
Jorge Torres ran away with the men’s individual title, covering the 10-kilometer course in 29:33. With the victory, Torres captured his second straight Mountain Regional crown as he finished a whopping 38 seconds ahead of second-place runner Antony Ford of NAU.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a region whose winner ran too much faster than the winner in our region,” Gensel said. “[Torres] just tore it up.”
BYU’s Michaela Monova edged NAU’s Ida Nilsson by one second to win the women’s individual title (20:31 to 20:32). All seven Cougar runners finished in the top 12.
– jasonwturner@cc.usu.ed