Cross-country men WAC champs, women take third
And just like that, Utah State continues its dominance in Western Athletic Conference cross-country. The men’s team won the title, while the women’s team took third place. Senior Brian McKenna won the men’s individual title as both teams had four athletes earn all-WAC honors.
McKenna said it feels phenomenal to win.
“We did really well today,” he said. “We’ve got five seniors who’ve been at it together the whole time at Utah State, and to carry away the trophy really means a lot. We’re glad we could make it here and do so well.”
McKenna’s win is his second conference championship in three years as he finished the 8-kilometer race with a time of 24 minutes, 46 seconds to also earn the WAC Athlete of the Year award.
The native of Farmington said the course was more technical than he expected.
“We thought there was just one little hill, and instead it was one big hill and the rest was ups and downs,” he said. “We had a pretty good headwind coming across the island. That was actually probably a good thing for us, because we’ve been on uneven courses most of the year. We took control of the race pretty early and got our team in front.”
Following an injury-ridden, second-place finish last season, McKenna said, to get the victory this year was “really sweet.”
“As I crossed the finish line and looked, everybody looked like they’d put out a pretty good effort,” McKenna said. “I think Coach couldn’t be more happy about what we did.
USU head coach Greg Gensel said his team executed a great plan to get the win.
“That was pretty awesome,” Gensel said. “Brian’s plan was to take it out hard and make the people that were racing him work hard at the beginning of the race. He knew coming from altitude that he would have the ability to recover from that, and he was hoping they — coming from sea level — wouldn’t be able to recover, and that’s exactly what happened.”
The men’s team finished with 35 points and narrowly edged out New Mexico State’s 47 and Idaho’s 59. Senior Daniel Howell finished fourth, in 25:32.5, and sophomore Kyle McKenna took fifth, with a time of 25:43.8.
“It was pretty close, but we ran a great race,” Gensel said. “Brian was able to pull out the win, and our other guys ran well enough to get us a team win. We have some good runners on our team.”
Gensel also won the WAC Coach of the Year award for the sixth time in the last seven seasons.
“The thing that speaks for that is the quality of the runners that we get — both as people and as athletes,” Gensel said. “They’re great student-athletes. They’re quality people. That’s a base to continue having success when you have those kind of people.”
The women’s team finished third in an even closer race than the men’s. Idaho won with 38 points and New Mexico State took second with 53. Running without their No. 1 Hannah Williams, due to an injury sustained Wednesday, the USU women’s team took third with 60 points.
Senior Ruth Hilton finished as USU’s top finisher, in ninth place, with a time of 18:59.3
The Aggies had a 16-second spread between their top five finishers, which Gensel said was “pretty phenomenal.”
“(Williams) was here trying to get ready to run and she just couldn’t go,” Gensel said. “The other girls stepped it up and ran really good and ended up running a great race as a team. They could have tanked it. They could have said ‘Oh, our No. 1 runner’s not here, we’re not going to do it as good as a team,’ but they did a great job in the way they raced. I was proud of them.”
The Utah State cross-country teams will next compete in the NCAA Mountain Region Championships Nov. 12 in Orem, in hopes of qualifying for the NCAA national meet Nov. 21.
– tavin.stucki@aggiemail.usu.edu