Griz open season in Cheney

Friday, September 3

Cheney, Wash.

Montana

Clash of the Inland Northwest

9/2/2021 10:42:00 AM | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country

By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana cross country teams will open their fall season on Friday morning when the Grizzlies race at the Clash of the Inland Northwest in Cheney, Wash.

The eight-team meet will start at 11 a.m. (MT) with the women's four-kilometer race. The men's six-kilometer race will follow at 11:30 a.m. (MT).

Joining Montana from the Big Sky Conference will be host Eastern Washington and Idaho, with a partial squad from Gonzaga also scheduled to race.

Rounding out the field will be Lewis-Clark State, Whitman, Whitworth and Walla Walla.

The meet kicks off a six-race schedule for the Grizzlies, with the Big Sky Conference Championships in Hillsboro, Ore., in late October and the NCAA Mountain Regional in Provo, Utah, in mid-November capping the season.

Montana will race at Montana State on Sept. 18, host a meet on Sept. 24 and travel to Riverside, Calif., for a race on Oct. 16.

The Montana men's team placed eighth at the Big Sky Championships in February in Utah and was picked eighth in this fall's preseason coaches' poll, but that has more to do with the quality and depth of the league than a suggestion that the Grizzlies are standing still.

Northern Arizona, ranked No. 1, and Southern Utah, No. 24, are both among the nation's best, while Weber State, Montana State, Portland State, Idaho State and Idaho are all ranked in the preseason Mountain and West region polls.

It's a steep hill to climb, but coach Clint May has the type of team that could finally start picking off opponents once late fall arrives.

He has seven of the eight runners who raced in February at the Big Sky Championships back. He doesn't have a headliner, like a Lynn Reynolds, who finished in the top five at the Big Sky meet in 2009, '10 and '11, but he has more depth than any Griz team in a long time.

"It's just a great, great group of guys," said May, who was named Montana's head coach of track and field over the summer after serving as interim coach the previous year.

"I think we have the potential of having seven, eight or nine guys going under 25 minutes (for an eight-kilometer race)."

The team had a tune-up race last week in Missoula, the four-mile River City Roots Run.

At February's Big Sky Championships, it was Joel Mendez, Kyle Peterson (now graduated), Truman Cowan, Nathan Carter and Hunter May leading the way.

On Saturday it was Ben Cikutovich, Cowan, Rogelio Mares and AJ Eckmann at the top, just nine seconds separating them.

"That shows the depth. I feel like we have eight or nine of those guys on the same team on the same year," May added. "And they were all under 20 minutes," a sub-five-minute-mile pace.

Cikutovich was the star of the day. The senior from Spokane has never finished higher than fifth on the team in a cross country race, and that came back in 2018, when he was a freshman.

On Saturday he took on not just his teammates but all of Missoula's best and came out on top, rocking the course at a 4:56/mile pace.

"He's treating this like it's his last year and wants to go away with no regrets," said May. "He is leaps and bounds better.

"You take his freshman through junior year and what's happened between his junior year and now, and it's probably greater than those three years combined."

May knows it will be a gradual process to move up the ladder in the Big Sky. His Grizzlies are not going to win a Big Sky title this fall and are not quite ready to defeat any of the Big Four. But even a fifth-place finish in a league as stacked on the men's side as the Big Sky is would be a major accomplishment.

"Last year we had six guys in the top 50 and our top guy was 40th," May said. "I think we can have something very similar this year, just change the dynamics, from top 50 to top 40. That would give us a shot at fifth place, and that would mean you have a very good team."

When the Clash of the Inland Northwest was last held, in the fall of 2019, Gonzaga runners took the top nine spots.

The Bulldogs, who are not expected to race their top athletes on Friday, are even stronger now, ranking 27th nationally after making the NCAA Championships in March for the first time in program history.

Montana's top runner came in 16th and only one other Grizzly broke into the top 28 at the race two years ago.

"I think it will be a lot different than that," said May. "I think we'll have five or six guys in the top 25.

"We did not have anyone in the lead pack (in 2019), but they are not too fast for us anymore for us to go out and get in there and give it a shot. I think we'll have some guys right up there, shoulder to shoulder."

The Montana women's team, at least the one that will compete on Friday, will race from the opposite end of the spectrum.

The lineup is expected to be Olivia Lackland Henry, Leah Gath, a transfer from Hofstra, and six true freshmen, including Mikenna Ells, of Whitefish, Molly Sherman, of Bozeman, and Abby Sherwood, of Frenchtown.

Not racing on Friday: Beatrix Frissell, who was 10th at the Big Sky Championships as a freshman, 12th in February as a sophomore, or Amara Christensen or Carly Dahms, who were part of Montana's seven-athlete team who raced in Utah in February at the league meet.

Only Lackland Henry from that team will be racing on Friday.

While the men's team was showing its high-end depth on Saturday at the Roots Run, the women raced as well.

Lackland Henry won the entire women's race in a swift time of 23:10, a mile pace of 5:48. But there was more than a minute gap to the next group of Grizzlies, then another one-minute gap to the rest.

Given the possibility of redshirts this fall, the women's team has as many preseason question marks as the men's team has solid answers.

The one known: Lackland Henry, who made a splashy debut in February, when she was the top freshman at the Big Sky Championships, placing 27th overall.

And she's only gotten better through the spring and summer. "Livy looks great. She's so strong," said May.

"I could see her running right up with anyone who's there (on Friday). That doesn't mean there is an expectation that she should be in it with a final kick to go, but at the mile mark, if there is a lead group, Livy should be there, whether that's five girls or 15."

Even with Frissell placing 12th and Lackland Henry finishing 27th at the Big Sky Championships last winter, Montana still came in eighth. No other Grizzly managed to finish in the top 55.

Montana was picked eighth in the preseason coaches' poll.

While not as strong as the men's half of the league, the women's side is led by Northern Arizona, which is ranked No. 12 nationally (but No. 4 in the Mountain Region, which speaks to the region's strength).

Weber State is No. 7 in the Mountain Region, Southern Utah No. 12 and Montana State No. 13. In the West Region, Portland State is No. 11, Idaho No. 12.