Washington State sweeps individual, team titles at WCC Cross Country Championships
From staff reports
Rosemary Longisa, Solomon Kipchoge and the Washington State Cougars planted their flag on the Course Spokane Valley in the venue’s debut Saturday morning.
WSU swept the individual and team titles at the 41st West Coast Conference cross-country championships in rainy, 50-degree conditions — no great surprise, but the Cougars were anything but nonchalant about it. And with good reason — it was the school’s first conference team title for the women in their history, and the first in 50 years for the men.
“We are looking forward to NCAAs,” WSU men’s coach Wayne Phipps said on the ESPN broadcast, “but we are not, not celebrating this. “We are really excited about it.”
Fellow Kenyans Longisa and Kipchoge weren’t overly pressed in establishing course records. A freshman who debuted for the Cougs on the track last spring, Longisa eased away just before the midway point of the 6,000-meter race to win in 19 minutes, 35 seconds ahead of a strong run by Gonzaga sophomore Logan Hofstee, competing just minutes away from her East Valley alma mater.
Kipchoge had to chase down teammate and defending champ Evans Kurui, who made an aggressive start, but won by a whopping 25 seconds over 8,000 meters in 22:32.6.
Developments behind them played heavily into the outcome, however.
The 22nd-ranked Coug women, expecting and receiving a strong challenge from No. 26 Gonzaga, got a huge boost when Nicole Bissell, nominally their No. 5 runner, climbed from 22nd midway through the race to finish ninth.
“Every athlete struggles with confidence and having workouts translate to races,” WSU women’s coach Laura Harmon told ESPN. “This was the Nicole I see in practice.”
The Cougars edged Gonzaga 38-42, even with Hofstee surging past Cougars’ No. 2 Zenah Cheptoo in the last 1,200 meters and two other Zags, Jessica Frydenlund and Willow Collins, in the top seven.
The WSU men lived up to every bit of their No. 11 national ranking by scoring 26 points and putting all five scorers in the top 10, including Oregon transfer Kutoven Stevens in eighth. The minor surprise came in the race for second, with defending champion Portland pulling together its best race of the season to edge Gonzaga 50-58. The Zags’ Logan Schwartz had a sensational day in finishing fourth, but regular No. 1 runner Logan Law struggled over the last two kilometers and did not score.
Big Sky: Northern Arizona once again swept the men’s and women’s titles at the Big Sky Conference championships in Bozeman, Montana. Idaho and Eastern Washington were sixth and seventh, respectively, among the men and fifth and eighth in the women’s race. Vandals Jesse Redding and Alex Terry, in 14th and 15th in the women’s race, were the only locals to crack the top 25.
NWC: Whitworth’s men and women both claimed runner-up trophies at the Northwest Conference championships in Parkland, Washington, behind defending champion George Fox. Pirates London Haley and Lily Jones also were second in the individual standings.