Goal race approaching for Montana women
11/9/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
The University of Montana cross country teams will be in Salt Lake City, Utah, Saturday for the NCAA Mountain Region championships. The women???s six-kilometer race starts at 10:30 a.m., the men???s 10-kilometer race begins at 11:45 a.m.
Both races are being held at the Rose Park Golf Course.
The Montana women won the Big Sky Conference championship Saturday, Oct. 30, the program???s first conference title since 1984, but it???s been regionals and the opportunity to make it to nationals as a team that has been the Grizzlies??? goal since the team met at Lubrecht Forest in August for a weekend-long preseason training camp.
???This has really been our main goal all year,??? UM cross country coach Courtney Babcock said. ???We???ve really been stressing regionals.
???Winning conference was the first step. Now we want to take the confidence we gained from that into regionals and make nationals for the first time (in program history).???
With three teams currently ranked in the top 10 nationally, the Mountain Region continues to live up to its reputation as the toughest of the nation???s nine regions. And that will be to Montana???s benefit.
The top two teams at each of the nine region meets Saturday will earn an automatic spot at nationals. Thirteen additional at-large spots are parceled out, and the NCAA has traditionally been generous to the strong Mountain Region.
The region received five spots last year ??? two automatic, three at-large ??? but Babcock thinks a minimum of a fourth-place finish Saturday will be required for the Grizzlies to move on since their national ranking is hovering in the mid 30s.
The region???s top three teams, Texas Tech, Colorado and New Mexico, are ranked third, eighth and 10th nationally and are likely unbeatable by the rest of the region???s teams outside of the Red Raiders, Buffalos and Lobos getting stuck in a sand trap on Rose Park???s No. 16.
Texas Tech recently won the Big 12 title, edging out Colorado by nine points at the conference meet. New Mexico is the Mountain West Conference champion.
That leaves the No. 4 spot up for grabs between No. 4 Colorado State, No. 5 Montana and No. 6 BYU. The Rams finished second to New Mexico at the Mountain West meet, with the Cougars close behind in third.
There proved to be little difference between the three teams at last month???s NCAA Pre-Nationals meet in Terre Haute, Ind.
BYU finished 11th in the Blue race with an average top-five time of 21:23. Montana was 12th in the White race with an average time of 21:39, and CSU was 18th in the Blue race with an average time of 21:42.
???It???s tough to say how many teams from our region will make it (to nationals), but we definitely have to beat Colorado State and BYU to give ourselves a chance,??? Babcock said.
???The girls are excited and ready to go. Usually at this time of year you can tell the athletes are starting to get tired, but we???re just starting to get ramped up.???
Montana will be represented by a hungry group of seven athletes who have had this race on their radar since well before preseason camp: seniors Brooke Andrus, Kara DeWalt, Katrina Drennen and Bridgette Hoenke, junior Kesslee Payne and freshmen Keli Dennehy and Annie Moore.
???Our goal is to make nationals, and that is absolutely evident in the girls??? eyes every time we go to practice,??? Payne said. ???We didn???t taper for conference, so to win there has really built our confidence for Saturday when we step on the line.
???We???ve got a lot of confidence in each other because we all know what we???ve done in training to prepare ourselves to go to nationals.???
To finish fourth, the current team will have to race at a level it has not shown yet at regionals.
Last November in Albuquerque, N.M., Drennen placed 17th, but no other runner finished better than 60th as the Grizzlies finished 12th.
But Montana proved it can run at a big meet when the Grizzlies competed well at Pre-Nationals in October. In the end Saturday, it may come down to a couple of points here or there to determine which team is in fourth when the last runner has crossed the line.
???What it comes down to is that when we???re in the middle of the race Saturday and things are hurting, we need to fight, because every point counts when teams are that close,??? Payne added.
???Even though Colorado State and BYU have recognizable names and good talent, we also have very similar talent. Just not the name yet.???
Should Montana come up short of its team goal, Drennen, Dennehy, DeWalt and Payne could all make a push for at least one individual spot to nationals.
The top four individuals Saturday from teams that do not advance to nationals ??? as long as they finish in the top 25 ??? will be going to Terre Haute, which Drennen did last year. Her 17th-place finish allowed her to grab the fourth and final spot from the region behind a runner from Northern Arizona and two from Colorado State.
Texas Tech, New Mexico, BYU, Colorado and Texas-El Paso all advanced as teams in 2009.
???I haven???t thought much about individuals until just recently, because it???s been such a priority for us to get the team to nationals,??? Babcock said.
???Realistically Katrina and Keli have the best chance, but I feel like we have four or five girls who have the opportunity to break into the top 25.???
The Montana men???s team finished eighth at the Big Sky Conference championship. With no chance of the team advancing, Saturday???s race becomes more about the individuals, or in the case of the Grizzlies this fall, the individual.
Junior Lynn Reynolds has led the team at all four races to date. He has crossed the line more than 90 seconds ahead of his closest teammate all four outings.
??He has left regionals disappointed his first two attempts at the 10-kilometer distance, finishing 35th in 2008 and 40th last year, but he won???t be satisfied by only becoming NCAA-eligible with a top-25 finish this fall.
???For me, Saturday becomes more of an individual race,??? Reynolds said. ???I???m focusing a little bit more on myself than the team this week.
???Courtney told me I have to be in the top 25 to make myself eligible. I told her it won???t matter, because I???m going to be top 10. That way I won???t have to worry about it at all. It takes the guesswork out of it.???
Reynolds was fifth at last month???s Big Sky Conference championship, and he???ll likely have familiar company when he???s challenging for one of the four individual spots.
Montana State, which was second at the Big Sky championship, is ranked fifth in the region behind four teams in the top 15 in the nation: Northern Arizona (7), Colorado (9), New Mexico (10) and BYU (15). That means Reynolds could be battling MSU???s Patrick Casey, who was third at conference, and other Bobcats for an NCAA-qualifying spot.
Reynolds, from Dillon, Mont., and Casey, from Laurel, Mont., have been competing since early in their prep careers.
???You might have friends off the course, but when you???re on the course, you don???t have any friends,??? Reynolds said. ???When we???re on the course, I???m out there to beat him. It will be the same thing with Pat.
???I???m not going to help him along, and I don???t expect him to help me along. I???m going out there to take his spot.
???Though hopefully we can both make it. You???ve always got to cheer for another Montana boy.???
