Griz continue season Saturday at Lewiston

Saturday, October 15

Lewiston, Idaho

Montana

Inland Empire Championships

10/12/2016 10:49:00 AM | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country

By: Montana Sports Information

The Grizzly cross country teams, which are coming off mixed results at the Montana Invitational 12 days ago, will compete Saturday at the Inland Empire Championships at Lewiston, Idaho.

The races will be held at the Lewis-Clark State Cross Country Trail at Lewiston Orchards, with the women's five-kilometer race starting at noon (MT), the men's eight-kilometer race at 12:45 p.m. (MT).

A dozen schools are expected to compete, including Washington State and Gonzaga, plus Eastern Washington, Idaho, Idaho State and Montana from the Big Sky Conference.

Saturday's meet will be the final opportunity for Montana to race before the Big Sky Conference Championships, which will be held 30 miles up the road in Moscow on Friday, Oct. 28.

"I think we're right on track," said UM coach Vicky Pounds. "I'm getting excited. It's great to see their confidence building.

"We're revisiting some of the workouts we had in earlier training blocks so we can compare. They're doing workouts faster or running much more comfortably at certain paces. They're gaining a lot of confidence from that."

The UM women's team, which had three runners in the top six at the Montana Invitational, is on a roll and adds senior Lauryn Wate to the lineup on Saturday for the first time this fall.

Behind sophomores Jessica Bailey and Emily Pittis, who finished third and fourth, and senior Reagan Colyer, who placed sixth, the Grizzlies knocked off Gonzaga and matched Montana State in duals at the Montana Invitational.

That performance vaulted Montana from unranked to No. 12 in the subsequent USTFCCCA Mountain Region poll. It was the first ranking of the year for the Grizzlies, who reached as high as No. 11 in the region poll last fall.

Sophomore Bridget Creel finished 14th at the Montana Invitational, senior Madison Nagle was 20th. Wate, six times in Montana's top three in her career, will add depth to that group.

"I think we're just going to continue building off our last race," said Pounds, who will also have sophomore Rosa Hardarson and freshman Samantha Engebretsen competing on Saturday.

"After the race we met to reevaluate our goals and see where we're at and what we need to do to get there. We want to do well at conference, but now we want to go to regionals and have a good showing there as well."

The NCAA Mountain Regional will be held on Friday, Nov. 11, at Logan, Utah.

The men's team struggled at its home meet, with only junior Paden Alexander finishing in the top 20. Sophomore Jonathan Eastwood was 28th. The next Grizzly to cross the line was sophomore Dillon May in 44th.

Montana dropped lopsided duals to both Gonzaga and Montana State.

"We need to redeem ourselves from our home meet," said Pounds. "They just need to go out there and do what they're capable of doing and do what they do in practice.

"They know it wasn't their best performance or a reflection of where their fitness is. Every race is a learning opportunity, and we walked away having learned something from that."

Racing Saturday will be Alexander, Eastwood, May, juniors Tucker Costain and Nathan Wellington, and freshman Noah Kells.

"It's a great course. It's flat and fairly fast," said Pounds, who took the teams to Lewiston last October as well. "We go down in elevation, so the kids have had a good experience there."