USU runners have strong showing in Minnesota
After some better-than-expected finishes and some not-quite-realized goals, the Utah State cross country team looks to regroup after the Griak Invitational in Minnesota.
With an incredible race from Mike Nielson and a strong, united effort from the women’s team, led by Carol Cabanillas, both the men’s and women’s cross country teams finished 20th competing against several nationally ranked teams.
“It was a good meet for me individually, but not as good as a team. A lot of people didn’t run as well as they could have,” Nielson said.
Nielson led the way for the Aggies finishing eighth overall with a time of 24:31. Next from the team was senior Ryan Griffeth who finished 112th with a time of 25:51.
Other top Aggie finishers included David Danley who ran the course in 25:51 for 114th place and Clark Bryner who came in at 25:52 to be ranked 116th. Sophomore Trevor Ball had a disappointing finish, coming in 183rd with a time of 26:36.
“It wasn’t a very good meet for us, we didn’t do as well as we wanted,” Griffeth said. “I thought that I ran well and felt like I did good, but when I saw the results, it wasn’t what I expected.”
There are varying reasons for the Aggies not being able to finish as well as they had hoped.
“I would say that injuries definitely played their role,” Nielson said. “Clark Bryner is just getting over his injury, Trevor Ball was injured and although Dave Danley has recovered, he isn’t quite back to where he can be.”
Griffeth has another view.
“There was no one reason why we didn’t perform as well as we wanted to,” he said. “I guess one could be that we kind of got lost in the crowd. There were a lot of runners there, around 300, and we didn’t know exactly where we were and where we had to get to.”
Although the team is disappointed by the meet, it doesn’t discourage them from their overall goals of the season.
“It is all a matter of getting it all together at the right time,” Nielson said. “I still think we can do great this
season.”
Griffeth said, “We are a great team and can go a long way. It will be a lot of work but I think we can make it.”
On the other side, the women’s team is excited and very happy with its performance Saturday.
Cabanillas led the pack coming in 92nd with a time of 22:29. She was closely followed by many other Aggies including, Lida Riplinger who place 100th with a time of 22:36, Ashley Johnson who came in 108th with a time of 22:42 and Christi Howell who came in 114 with a time of 22:46.
“It was a really good meet, we had some big expectations and we came out on top of those,” Cabanillas said.
Aggie runner Emily Prestwich said, “We ran really well as a team. Compared to other schools from around here, we did really well.”
One of the goals this year of the women’s team was to be able to stay together, run as pack. Cabanillas said she feels the team accomplished this with five girls coming in within 30 seconds of each other.
“It was really good because we were all together,” she said. “We were able to work through the hard parts together and I think that overall, everyone was happy with how they ran.”
Prestwich said, “It showed each other that we can run, and showed how close we are to each other.”
Both teams are now preparing to run in Iowa in a couple of weeks. The men’s team is looking to recover from injuries and hopefully have some better runs than what they had this past weekend. The women’s team is looking to improve on its great races from Saturday and once again, stay close together.
-aedmunds@cc.usu.edu