Championship week arrives for Griz runners

Saturday, October 28

Ogden, Utah

Montana

Big Sky Conference Championship

10/25/2017 7:02:00 PM | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country

By: Montana Sports Information

2017 Performance List

The first of the Big Sky Conference's list of championships for 2017-18 takes place this weekend when the league's cross country teams travel to Ogden, Utah.

The meet will take place on Saturday at the Riverside Golf Course, with the women's five-kilometer race starting at 11 a.m., the men's eight-kilometer race at 11:45 a.m.

Women's Preview

Montana opened the season getting ranked third in the Big Sky preseason poll, even collecting a first-place vote, but as championship week arrives, five conference teams enter Saturday's race holding a USTFCCCA regional ranking. The Grizzlies are not one of them.

In the Mountain Region, Northern Arizona is No. 5, Montana State is No. 10, Weber State is No. 11 and Southern Utah is No. 14. Idaho is ranked 14th in the West Region.

Montana opened the season ranked 9th in the Mountain Region, but that was based on a perfect world. And in August, at the time of the first poll, things were far from perfect. Of course the voters didn't know that.

Jessica Bailey, who led Montana at last year's Big Sky meet, was injured, as were Samantha Engebretsen and Madeline Hamilton.

Emily Pittis, Maryn Lowry and Reagan Colyer have been the team's top three all season, racing with great consistency, but the depth wasn't there to finish well in the team standings at races, so Montana eventually dropped out of the region poll.

Even then, coach Vicky Pounds said to be patient, that the team would come around by late October, after injuries healed. That time has arrived, and even though the Grizzlies are not quite in top form, they're much closer to being the team of the preseason polls than they were two months ago.

Pounds will bring Pittis, Lowry, Colyer, Bailey, Engebretsen, Hamilton and freshman Maeve Holman to Utah and watch the race with certainty, knowing what that group is going to do.

"I'm 100 percent confident that the girls are going to show up and give me the best that they have on that day. Whether that's going to be good enough for a top-three finish, I don't know," said Pounds.

"There are other teams in the conference that are doing extremely well right now. We'll go and compete the best we can. We've done a good job staying positive this entire season and keeping our focus on the end result. The girls have done everything right."

Northern Arizona, last year's champion, is expected to repeat, with Montana State and Weber State also fielding strong teams. Outside of Montana's title in 2010, those three teams have combined to win every Big Sky championship race since 1984.

With the way they've performed in 2017, Pittis, Lowry and Colyer will be in the mix on Saturday. Any of them could finish top 10. All could be top 20.

Pittis didn't finish lower than fourth at this season's first three races. She placed 27th two weekends ago at the larger Santa Clara Invitational in California. Her time of 21:10 was a PR for a six-kilometer course.

She went to last year's championship race with hopes of a top-10 finish, but they were mostly that: hopes. She finished 19th, behind Bailey (12th) and Colyer (17th).

Pittis is going to this year's race with the same goal and a bit more belief in herself and her teammates. She'll be racing with more than hope.

"I feel pretty confident," she said. "Last year I think we felt that maybe we didn't belong in the top 10 or with the top girls. Now we know we belong with those top runners. It's going to hurt but we can run with them."

Bailey, Engebretsen and Hamilton made their season race debuts at the Montana Invitational at the end of September. Bailey closed the gap on the team's top three at Santa Clara, and Engebretsen was fifth, 68 seconds behind Lowry, who led the team at Baylands Park.

"Our top three have been so solid all fall. They work together so well," said Pounds. "And now every practice the gap shrinks. Jess has been starting workouts with them, so she's almost there. And the other three have been working well together."

Men's Preview

Pounds doesn't hold back when talking about the performance of her men's team last year at the Big Sky meet in Moscow, Idaho. "We didn't have a very good day," she says.

Indeed, the Grizzlies had only one individual in the top 35, just two in the top 60 and struggled to a 10th-place finish, ahead of only North Dakota and Northern Colorado. It was the lowest finish for Montana in program history.

Not surprisingly, Montana was picked ninth in this year's preseason coaches' poll and will go to Ogden mostly overlooked in what is one of the Big Sky's strongest sports.

Northern Arizona, last year's national champion, is ranked No. 1 nationally in the latest USTFCCCA poll. Southern Utah, the only school outside of NAU to win a Big Sky title in the last decade, in 2015, is No. 12.

Northern Arizona (1), Southern Utah (5), Weber State (8), Montana State (13) and Idaho State (15) all go into Saturday's race holding a ranking in the Mountain Region.

Montana will be just another collection of uniforms that fans can mostly disregard, a team that should be a non-factor. And junior Dillon May wouldn't want it any other way.

"You look at everyone's expectations for us, and I just think we're going to soar," he said. "We're excited to get down there and show people what we're made of and why we should be recognized as the program that we are now.

"It's an exciting time to be on the team as we take these steps forward."

Pounds will bring seniors Paden Alexander and Micah Drew, May and Jonathan Eastwood, both juniors, and freshmen Andrea Baratte, Kyle Kredo and Kyle Peterson.

Montana isn't going to win the race on Saturday and probably won't challenge the top five. More than looking simply at placing, Pounds is expecting a general improvement on race performance compared to last season.

"With the women, you can look at other teams in the conference and compare them. With the men you can do that too, but where I'm more focused is on the progression of where were last year and what we can do this year," said Pounds.

"They've been pretty consistent all year. They're working more as a team than they have in the past. I believe that will show up in their placing at conference."

It's a multi-year process, but at least Montana has taken the first steps toward improving. No one illustrates that rise better than May, a walk-on who has placed in the team's top three at two races this season and is coming off a PR for an eight-kilometer course two weeks ago at Santa Clara.

As May can attest, it just takes time, whether for an individual or a group.

"The (distances you race in college) is something you have to adjust to, as is the elevation of Missoula," said May, who is from Maple Valley, Wash., south of Seattle.

"A big thing is to trust the plan Vicky has for me. The bigger thing is my belief that this is something God put me on earth to do. The plan I have for myself is lining up with God's plan for me. I'm seeing the fruits of all the labor."

Alexander will be racing at his fourth Big Sky championship on Saturday. His best individual finish was 37th in 2015. Drew and Eastwood are racing their third conference meet. Drew finished 53rd in 2013, Eastwood placed 24th last fall.

May is racing for the second time at conference and looking to improve upon last year's 67th-place showing.

Upcoming: Montana will race at the NCAA Mountain Regional in Logan, Utah, on Friday, Nov. 10.