Ute athletic price cuts prove an advantage for Aggies in Twitchell
A lack of funding by the University of Utah helped the Utah State Men’s cross country team win there second-straight WAC Championship. Vance Twitchell, a senior in civil engineering from Helena, Mont., led the men’s cross country team to victory in Fresno, Calif., last weekend. For his efforts, he was named the Aggie Athlete of the Week.
He spent his first two years running at the University of Utah and transferred up here, along with teammates Seth Wold and Taylor Price, when Utah cut the men’s cross country team due to a lack of funding.
Twitchell placed second overall with a time of 24:42 in the 8-kilometer race.
“I finished where I expected to be. Forest Brayden, who beat me is an all-American. As long as I am near him, I am happy,” he said.
Twitchell didn’t just turn into an all conference runner overnight. In fact, he has been running pretty much his entire life.
“I ran my first mile in gym class as a first-grader,” he said. “My gym teacher happened to be the cross country coach at the local high school, so that was the start of it.”
He now runs between 14 to 15 miles a day, six days a week. With such a demanding schedule between running and keeping up in his studies, most people would have a hard time keeping up on a marriage as well. But for Twitchell, that job is made a lot easier because his wife Jennifer is also a standout runner for the women’s team. She placed fourth overall to lead the women to a championship as well.
When asked what it was like being able to participate with his wife in the same sport at the collegiate level, he said, “It is way cool; we get to go to cool places together.”
When not running, the Twitchells enjoy spending time outdoors together mountain biking and hiking. Once they finish with running, he says they plan on raising a family, but for now, Twitchell’s main focus is on school and cross country.
The next step, according to Twitchell, is to help the team qualify for nationals – something that has never happened at USU.
“We hope that the team does the absolute best that we can and have a bid at nationals,” he said. “Our team could possibly go. We have never gone as a team and that is always our goal.”
The Aggies can qualify for nationals at the regional race on Nov. 11 in New Mexico.