Cross country season set to begin in Bozeman

Friday, September 1

Bozeman, Mont.

7:20 PM

Montana

MSU Bobcat Twilight

Scenes from Griz in the Park hosted by Downtown Tonight in Caras Park on August 24, 2023.

Photo by: Tommy Martino/UM Athletics

8/30/2023 4:14:00 PM | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country

By: Montana Sports Information

There is a certain level of excitement that comes with hosting a championship event. For Montana cross country, the thought of the Big Sky Championships – a meet which will feature some of the best distance runners in the country – is an exciting end point that is propelling them through the 2023 season.

Before the Grizzlies get to that late October meet however, there are four stops they must make in the season. It starts this weekend in Bozeman at the MSU Bobcat Twilight meet and includes the UM Invite in Missoula on Sept. 15, the Dellinger Invitational in Eugene on Sept. 22 and the LC Invitational on Oct. 14.

Now in his second year as the head coach of the program, Doug Fraley has high hopes for the group assembled in Missoula. Montana bring back eight returners on the men's side and six on the women's side, providing plenty of leadership for the nine total newcomers to the two rosters.

"We're real excited about both our men's and women's cross country groups this year. We've got a really good core of veteran leadership on both sides as well as a very good influx of incoming freshmen and transfers that bring the talent level up in both groups," Fraley said. "We're excited and looking forward to see them progress through the season."

There is no question that the highlight of the season will be the Big Sky Championships in Missoula. It is the first time that the event will come to Missoula since the 2007 season, and just the fifth time overall. Montana finished third on the women's side and fifth on the men's side the last time they hosted.

The anticipation of hosting the meet, which will feature the preseason No. 1 team in the country in the Northern Arizona men along with the No. 2 Northern Arizona women. Fans in Missoula will have a chance to witness some of the best running talent in the country, and the Grizzlies will have a chance to compete amongst the best.

"Any time you host a conference championship, it's a big deal. It's a big bump in enthusiasm," Fraley said. "It's a big bump in terms of setting high goals for yourself as an individual and as a group of runners. It creates more incentive and more energy toward the championships then when it is somewhere else."

Hosting duties provide not only a boost during the meet itself, but also to Montana's regular season home meet. In year's past, the meet was held in late September or early October to not conflict with Montana State's meet in Bozeman. This year, the Bobcats gave up the valuable weekend of hosting for a chance to get a preview of the championship course.

The Bobcats, whose men are nationally ranked to begin the season, aren't the only team coming to town for the meet. While the final field is still being finalized, the strength of the teams competing should be much higher for the meet than in years past.

"It's huge getting our preview meet to be much better than it has been in the past few years because of teams' interest in coming to compete on the course that we will use at the conference championship," Fraley said. "It not only gives our athletes a chance to compete on their home course, but also against a higher level of competition."

The Big Sky released its preseason polls last week, which slotted Montana in a tie for seventh on the men's side and ninth on the women's side. The projections are fairly accurate to last year's Big Sky Championship, where the men finished in eighth with 214 points and the women in ninth with 233 points.

While the preseason predictions may have been based on those results, Fraley is hoping that the team is motivated by them to finish higher during the 2023 season. There are plenty of returners who remember the feeling in Cheney, and don't want to recreate it this year.

The combination of a disappointing finish last year to go along with the added boost of hosting the meet this year should give them some added inspiration for an improvement in the league ranks.

"We were not happy in the least last year in Cheney when we got eighth in the men's and the women's," Fraley said. "With it being a year where we're hosting the conference meet, I know that our kids expect a lot more than that out of themselves. They really look forward to hosting the rest of the conference here and showing what we can do."

Montana return the top three finishers on the men's side from last years Big Sky Championship. Rogelio Mares finished 38^th, Nathan Carter 43^rd, and Maxwell Scott 47^th. Also returning on the men's side with Big Sky Championship experience in 2022 are Brady Woods (56^th), Cooper Morris (58^th), and Lane Cole (63^rd). Truman Cowan also returns for his final year of eligibility after missing the 2022 season, and Colin Shaules also returns.

The women lost the top two finishers from last year's Big Sky Championship squad, but the rest return and will look to build upon their 2022 finishes. Bridget Boyle (54^th) had the highest finish of all returners at the 2022 conference meet, followed closely by Jaylyn Hallgrimson and Iris McKean at 58^th and 59^th, respectively.

Kayla Ingraham returns after a 65^th place finish and a solid track and field season, and Shay Pederson and Abby Sherwood will hope to regain health and form in 2023.

The most notable addition to the squad is Jade Hallgrimson, a transfer from Nebraska who returns to Montana to join her twin sister Jaylyn. The Hallgrimsons are from Billings Senior HS, but both began their careers as Cornhuskers and now get the chance to run together again.

The team is guided in the day-to-day activities by AJ Eckmann, the assistant coach for cross country and the distance group in track and field. The returners have looked sharp, and everyone has arrived ready to run, much to Eckmann's pleasure.

"The thing that AJ is most excited about is having a healthy group of runners show up for fall camp in much better shape than they were a year ago and even better than what he may have anticipated them coming in at," Fraley said.

Before the Championships, or the NCAA Mountain Regional in Lubbock, Texas, or the home meet in mid-September, Montana kicks things off at the MSU Bobcat Twilight meet this Friday night. The men's race will begin at 7:20 p.m. and the women's race at 7:45 p.m.

More than anything else, this weekend will be about putting that jersey back and getting the feeling of race day again.

"It's an icebreaker," Fraley said "It's the classic September 1 meet where the men only run 5K, and so it's a meet to just go out and see jerseys from a couple different teams and get a little adrenaline flow going to check your fitness for where you're at after a long summer of running mileage."