New race, new opponents for cross country teams
10/18/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country, Cross Country
Oct. 18, 2013
The Montana cross country teams will continue their fall season Saturday when they compete at the Santa Clara Bronco Invitational. The races will be held at Baylands Park in Sunnyvale, Calif.
The large meet will feature five races, with an alumni/community race at 8 a.m. (PT), the eight-kilometer men's invitational at 9 a.m. (PT), the six-kilometer women's invitational at 9:45 a.m. (PT), a men's eight-kilometer open race at 10:30 a.m. (PT) and a women's six-kilometer open race at 11:15 a.m. (PT).
The races include teams from three NCAA Division I regions, Division II and III schools, NAIA and junior colleges and two Canadian schools. Montana will be racing in the invitational races.
"We're going down to sea level, and it's a fairly flat, hard course, so I think everyone is going to feel good," said coach Vicky Pounds. "With the added excitement of flying to a new race and seeing some new faces, I expect some great performances."
The Griz men will be represented by junior Ben Williamson, redshirt sophomore Mark Messmer, sophomore Matt Barker, redshirt freshmen Cody Curtis and Adam Wollant and freshmen Paden Alexander and Micah Drew.
The women will have redshirt junior Keli Dennehy, juniors Heather Fraley, Allie Parks and Carly Wilczynski, redshirt freshmen Sarah Hastings and Lauryn Wate and freshman Reagan Colyer.
"There should be no pressure on anybody at this race," said coach Collin Fehr. "We won't recognize hardly any of the schools, so the excitement of being in a new environment should take any edge off. Everybody should have a great race."
Dennehy won the Carroll Early Bird Open back on Sept. 6, but she missed the Grizzlies' races at Montana State on Sept. 21 and at home on Oct. 4 with a calf injury. She'll be back in action Saturday.
In her absence, Colyer stepped up and led the team in Bozeman with a 12th-place finish. Parks led Montana at home two weeks ago with a third-place finish.
"Performance-wise we love having Keli back because she's so talented," Pounds said, "but there is something more that she brings to the team morale.
"I was talking to Carly (on Tuesday) about it, and she said it's great having Keli back because she adds so much energy to the group."
With Dennehy's return, Parks rounding into race shape, Colyer's emergence and Wilczynski's full health (she raced with a cold two weeks ago), Montana will be a team to watch not only on Saturday but also in two weeks at the Big Sky Conference championships at Bozeman.
"Everybody is on track for November," Fehr said. "Keli was kind of worried this week about her fitness, but she ran with the girls no problem. She kind of lost her feel of running (while she was injured), but she's still fit and will be able to compete just fine on Saturday."
The Grizzlies' strength has been their ability to run as a pack and finish with a small gap between its top five runners. At Carroll that split was 46 seconds. At Montana State it was 35 seconds.
With only five athletes racing at home two weeks ago and two of those out of sorts, the gap was an understandable 71 seconds.
That group mentality is what the Montana men will be trying to race with on Saturday.
"The women tend to run more in a pack, so that's not such a concern for us, but the men tend to spread out," Fehr said. "There is no pressure on us at this race, so we're going to try something we've never done.
"We're going to try to break the race up and give each of them a focus for different parts of the race. We've never tried that with them, as far as using one another for different parts of the race to help everyone get through the race. We still haven't had a complete group effort, so we're shooting for that.
"If we can get the gap closer to 30 seconds, that would be an improvement."
Montana has the equitable talent to pull it off. Wollant led the team at Carroll, Messmer at Montana State and Barker at home. Add in Alexander, who has been the team's No. 3 runner the last two races, and Curtis, who's quickly learning how to race cross country, and it's a strong top five.
How strong? The real test will come in two weeks at Bozeman, when the Grizzlies go up against the Big Sky Conference.
Players Mentioned
