Cross country teams racing at two sites this weekend

Saturday, October 14

Sunnyvale, Calif.

Montana

Santa Clara Bronco Invitational

Cross country teams racing at two sites this weekend

10/12/2017 9:39:00 AM | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country

By: Montana Sports Information

2017 Performance List

The Montana cross country teams, racing for the last time before the Big Sky Conference Championships later this month, will be competing at two races this weekend, one in California, one in Idaho.

A majority of the members of the teams will travel to Sunnyvale, Calif., for the Santa Clara Bronco Invitational. The races will be held at Baylands Regional Park, with the men's 8k starting at 10 a.m. (MT), the women's 6k at 10:45 a.m. (MT).

A handful of athletes will head to Lewiston, Idaho, for the Lewis-Clark State Invitational. Those races will start at noon (MT) and be contested at the LCSC Cross Country Trail at Lewiston Orchards.

Going to California from the women's team will be seniors Reagan Colyer and Maryn Lowry, juniors Jessica Bailey and Emily Pittis, sophomore Samantha Engebretsen and freshman Madeline Hamilton.

Pittis, Lowry and Colyer have been the women's team's top three this fall. Pittis has finished in the top four at each of the team's three races, with runner-up showing at both of the Grizzlies' home meets, the Clash of the Inland Northwest and Montana Invitational.

Lowry has been top 10 at all three races this season, and Colyer hasn't finished lower than 13th.

Bailey, who would have made it a Big 4 at the top of the lineup this fall had she been healthy, Engebretsen and Hamilton are all in the same situation. All are coming back from injury and raced for the first time this fall two weeks ago at the Montana Invitational.

Montana was picked third in the preseason coaches' poll, in voting that was done unaware of any injuries. It's taken time, but the Grizzlies are finally moving toward the team they were projected to be.

"We're slowly getting there. It feels good to be headed in the right direction," said coach Vicky Pounds. "We did mile repeats (on Tuesday) and not one person had a bad workout. It was a nice progression from when we last did the same workout. Everyone was faster across the board."

Bailey led Montana at the Big Sky Championships last fall, but she won't have time to reach that same level of fitness this season, not after dealing with various injuries since late May.

For Bailey, Engebretsen and Hamilton, the goal for Pounds is to be smart with their training and get them to Ogden at the end of the month for the Big Sky Championships feeling good about their chances. She knows being 10 percent undertrained is better than being one percent overtrained.

"All three are pretty much on the same path," said Pounds. "It's important that they're getting the right kind of training these final weeks heading into conference, making sure we're not overdoing it and getting them too fatigued going into it.

"This weekend will be one step closer to them being ready to go at conference."

Pittis finished second at the Montana Invitational and as the top collegiate runner. Colyer placed eighth, Lowry ninth. Engebretsen finished 21st, Hamilton 22nd and Bailey 27th.

It was the first collegiate race for Hamilton, who graduated last spring from Sentinel High in Missoula.

"She is just a talented athlete. The other thing she has going for her is she is highly competitive," said Pounds. "She goes out there and guts and grinds it out."

While the women's team that will be traveling to California is made up of two distinct sub-groups, the men's team is a unified pack of five. And it's been a long time coming.

Racing on Saturday will be seniors Paden Alexander and Micah Drew, juniors Jonathan Eastwood and Dillon May, and freshman Andrea Baratte.

"What they are doing in practice, they have never done for me consistently, and that's running together in a pack," said Pounds.

"They are working together and getting more and more comfortable doing that. Instead of racing each other in practice, they are working together. And the more we're doing it in practice, the better chance it's going to happen in races."

Even though Montana has had a different leader each race -- Alexander was the top finisher at the Clash of the Inland Northwest, Drew at the Montana State Invitational and Eastwood at the Montana Invitational -- the team's top five has been separated by a minute or less at each race.

At Montana State, that gap was just 31 seconds. Two weeks ago at home, on a course that didn't lend itself to pack running, not with its hilly nature, the gap between Eastwood, sixth overall, and Alexander, 19th, was exactly one minute.

On Saturday the team will race on a course that is more conducive to sticking together. It's flat and fast, a course the Grizzlies last raced in 2013.

Montana was originally scheduled to race at Idaho State this weekend, but bus trips to conference and regionals allowed for a midseason flight trip.

"It's not Pre-Nationals or anything like that, but it's a higher level of competition. And we go down to sea level for a flat, fast course, so it should be a good confidence builder going into conference," said Pounds.

The tradeoff is that it's a big race that features some tight corners, which can break up a pack, assuming it even gets together in the first place.

"This race reminds me of regionals. There will be a lot of athletes and it will go out pretty fast," said Pounds. "Hopefully they can find their teammates and work together."

Traveling with assistant coach Shannon Flynn to Lewiston will be junior Rosa Hardarson and freshmen Maeve Holman and Madison Ward from the women's team and sophomore Noah Kells and freshmen Kyle Kredo and Kyle Peterson from the men's side.

Peterson finished third for Montana at the Clash of the Inland Northwest, fourth at the Montana State Invitational. While none of the three made the cut to travel to California, they are in the next wave at workouts, not far off the leaders. And all are underclassmen.

"Kyle (Peterson) is right on the cusp, and Noah and Kyle (Kredo) are just off that. So it feels like we're finally building something on the men's side," said Pounds.

The Big Sky Championships will be hosted by Weber State in Ogden, Utah, on Saturday, Oct. 28. The NCAA Mountain Regional will be held in Logan, Utah, on Friday, Nov. 10.