Strickland leads Aggie runners at home meet
The Utah State cross country teams met with runners from Weber State, Boise State and Utah on Saturday at the American West Heritage Center in Wellsville.
Tiffany Strickland came in first for the women to lead the Aggie team to a 25-31 victory over Weber State.
Utah and Boise State finished considerably behind, each with 94 points. Strickland finished with a time of 15:36.20 on the 2.72 mile course, a full 10 seconds ahead of the next runner.
“I feel really good. It feels like the training has been working,” Strickland said.
Head coach Gregg Gensel added his praise.
“What a great race [Strickland] ran,” Gensel said. “She just kind of measured everybody out the first half of the race and said ‘here I go.'”
The men finished second behind WSU with a 27-31 score. Boise State finished with 75 points.
Senior Trevor Ball finished first for the Aggies at 18:27.46, but just behind the Wildcats’ Seth Pilkington (18:25.87). ? Pilkington, a former Roy High School standout runner, is a transfer from Illinois.
Ball and Pilkington ran right with each other throughout the race until Pilkington broke free towards the end.
“I had no idea he was going to come through that fast,” Ball said. “That always makes you wonder if you could have run faster.”
Senior Clark Bryner came in third overall for USU.
Despite the loss, Gensel was optimistic.
“I wasn’t really concerned about the race outcome as far as the team was concerned,” he said. “What I wanted to see was what they would do under race conditions.”
The Aggies next meet will be at Montana State at Bozeman, Mont. On Sept.17.
-benwalker@cc.usu.edu