Aggies win Idaho State Invite
The Utah State cross country teams won the men’s and women’s titles as well as the individual titles at the Idaho State Cross Country Invitational on Saturday in Pocatello, Idaho.
David Danley and Ashley Johnson both won individual titles. Both men’s and women’s teams placed three Aggies in the top five to help take home the team titles.
Aggie head coach Greg Gensel said he was pleased with the team’s performance.
“The first meet of the season is to see how well their summer conditioning worked and for what to look forward to for the rest of the season,” Gensel said.
The Aggies will have a lot to look forward to this season based on Saturday’s results, Gensel said.
On the men’s side Danley took first while Clark Bryner and Steven Strickland took third and fourth respectively.
Overall, the men placed five runners in the Top 10.
Johnson won for the women. Behind her, Stacie Lifferth placed second and Lida Ripplinger took fifth. The Aggie women ended up with six in the top 10.
“They were well prepared and they will only be in better condition throughout the season,” Gensel said. “I was pleased with their performance as well as the improvement each one of them has shown.”
“We have a good nucleus of three or four runners on both the men’s and women’s sides who can compete week in and week out,” Gensel said. “They take the pressure off the other runners so they can just concentrate on running good races and stepping up when they need to.”
Looking toward the rest of the season Gensel said he was pleased with the performance on Saturday.
“Johnson is a great athlete along with Stacie and Lida ran well and looked healthy, which is promising since she was injury plagued last season,” Gensel said.
On the men’s side Danley showed his dominance by winning the men’s title by 17 seconds over the second place finisher Matt Nelson of Idaho State.
Even with all the success in this meet, the Ags were not running with their full team.
“We left a couple of runners behind in Logan who could have performed just as well as the ones that we brought,” Gensel said.
Last year the Aggie men and women took second in the Idaho State Invitational. The improvement bodes well for a successful rest of the season. The next meet for both the men and women will be at the BYU Autumn Classic in Provo on Saturday.
The Aggies will look to improve from their times on Saturday and their third place finish at the Autumn Classic last year.
“[The Autumn Classic] will be a different meet, since BYU is always highly ranked and it seems like is always competing for a national championship,” Gensel said.
Gensel said the Aggies are looking forward to the challenge and after Saturday’s performance are looking to capitalize on their talent and off-season work.
-krn@cc.usu.edu