Western’s cross-country team dominated the competition at the Saint Martin’s University Cross Country Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 26. The invitational took place at the SMU campus in Lacey, Washington on a course measuring 8 kilometers for the men and 5-kilometer-long run for the women.
Saturday’s invitational gave Western’s women’s team a two-win streak, the first being at University of Washington’s Sundodger Invitational on Sept. 19. At the SMU meet, Western’s women took home a score of 16 points, and had 10 runners place in the top 13 positions.
“They executed well and they learned more of what they’re capable of,” head track coach Pee Wee Halsell said.
Junior Brittany Grant finished the run at 17:49. Senior Taylor Guenther came in 33 seconds later. Freshman Tracy Melville and junior Lillianna Stelling took third and fourth place. Not far behind came junior Shawna Troupe in sixth place, senior Alexandra Laiblin in seventh and junior Sofia Marikis in ninth.
With the first nine finishers, the men also scored high with 15 points. This gives Western men it's second victory in three weeks.
For the men’s team, it was sophomore Isaac Derline who took the individual title. Finishing with a time of 25:42, Derline came in nine seconds ahead of junior Matthew Lutz. Sophomore Andrew Wise, junior Cody McCranie, redshirt freshman Nick Mounier, sophomore Sean Eustis and junior Will Jones took second through sixth places, respectively.
Viking cross-country will face British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University, ranked just above Western, at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 10 at Lake Padden.
“It’ll be a good challenge for us, it’ll be really good competition,” Halsell said.
