FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (September 1, 2018) – The Northern Arizona University men's and women's cross country teams swept the George Kyte Classic for a second year in a row, Saturday afternoon at Flagstaff's Buffalo Park.
The plan for the men was to have them run calm and composed for the first two and a half miles. When they hit the final two miles the coaches let the runners loose to finish the race out. The Lumberjack men crossed the finish line with the top five runners.
NAU's
Peter Lomong finished in first for the second year in a row at the event with a time of 22:59.3 which was an improvement over his time from last year (23:02.4).
"It is early in the season and it is good to see how strong we are now," Lomong said. "We are a lot more dominate this year. Not just the top finishers but we're strong all the way to the tenth guy."
Matt Baxter came in second with a time of 23:05.3.
Tyler Day was right behind in third (23:15.1) and
Geordie Beamish came in fourth (23:19.7). 2017 Big Sky Male Freshman of the Year
Luis Grijalva finished in fifth place with a time of 23:44.2 to help the NAU men claim their eighth-consecutive victory in the Classic.
Kyle Havriliak (12
th, 24:19.9) and
Elliot Gindi (13
th, 24:33.9) finished the race out for the Lumberjacks to help secure the top spot.
The men won the event with 15 points, matching their total score from a year ago. They were followed by fellow in-state universities Grand Canyon (55 points) and Arizona (70) to round out the top three.
"On the guys side, we felt that they put in a really good effort," assistant coach
Jarred Cornfield said. "Our veterans, as well as our freshmen, had a really solid outing. It was awesome to be able to run in front of our community. We held our guys back a bit and gave them a certain mark in the race where they could take off on their own and we saw a lot of people really moving forward at that point."
"We were really happy with our guys execution of this race, they did exactly what we asked them to do," assistant coach
Becca DeLoache added. "This race is a great opportunity to get our team out in front of the community, especially because we travel so often in this sport. The energy that the community brought really attributed to how our teams did today."
Three true freshmen Lumberjacks placing in the top ten was one of the highlights of the day. Although he ran unattached freshman
Ryan Raff would have come in second with a time of 23:02.5.
Theo Quax (23:44.2) and
Mitchell Small (23:54.7) displayed their potential for the future as well.
"The way we race sometimes in college is something that we have to teach," Director of Cross Country and Track & Field
Michael Smith said. "Having young runners who know how to embrace racing and competing kind of gives us a head start in doing that. On the men's side Ryan, Theo, and Mitchell displayed really gritty racing and competing trying to fight for their spot in the race. With 200 meters to go those guys were clawing for each and every spot and that's what it takes to do this at a high level."
For the women's team
Hannah Behunin really pushed herself to claim the top spot beating Grand Canyon's second-place finisher Lindy Jacobson by just 2.3 seconds with a time of 15:53.0 to 15:55.3 respectively.
"I was really happy to have raced against such great competitors," Behunin said. "Our team is getting really strong. I feel like a workout like this just makes us really strong with learning how to compete with others and getting that first race out of the way to get us ready for the rest of the season."
Pipi Eitel finished with a third-place showing of 16:01.2. "I was pretty excited going into this race," Eitel said. "We weren't really sure how it was going to play out after going the first mile and a half running at a really controlled pace. We pushed ourselves in that last mile. Races like this help to rip off the band-aide and make the second race that we go to a lot more manageable and make us feel more confident."
Eitel was followed by University of Arizona runner Keelah Barger in fourth (16:01.2) and fellow teammate
Delaney Rasmussen in fifth (16:10.8).
Shannon Molvin (sixth, 16:12.4), Jenna McCaffery (17th, 17:00.7) and
Kenzie Penca (29
th, 18:16.5) ran with great effort to assist in earning the Lumberjacks the Classic title, repeating for a second straight year.
The women claimed the top spot with 32 points, a huge improvement over last year's 46. They were also followed by Grand Canyon (44) and Arizona (72).
"The women had a great effort as well especially in closing," DeLoache said. "We kept them controlled as a group for the first mile and a half and then let them go on their own with a mile to go. We saw different people step up and really show what they could do during that last mile."
"Our women's side is really young and we have a little bit more unknowns in that regard," Cornfield added. "We saw a ton of really great positives from them. This race gave us a lot of good information as we try to make some decisions moving forward. We now have a better idea of what the team might potentially look like for the rest of the year. Still, it is so early in the season and really great to see such hard efforts in the crew and I think we saw that on both sides."
"Our whole group on the women's side is a young one," Smith said. "We have a lot of freshmen and sophomores who are just gaining the experience. Hannah, Pipi and Delaney are only in their second year and their success is something that is great to see for young athletes."
Both the men's and women's teams saw this as an opportunity to train and prepare themselves for the bulk of the 2018 cross country season.
"There's something different about getting our athletes in uniform and getting them out in an actual race," Smith said. "This meet not only gives us the opportunity to perform in front of our amazing community, but also gives us a marker for what to do next in training. Outside of individual performances, as a coach, I like to just see where we are overall as a group."
"I'm pleased," Smith added. "What we look for in every race is good effort. We had that today. Our runners are really tough, we have people that are running at a really heavy volume in training right now. A lot of times when you're training like that you may not feel good, but the question is what do you do when you're racing? Seeing the type of effort that was put out there today was a big plus for us."
The cross country team will have four weeks to train before the men head to Madison, Wis., to compete in the Wisconsin Nuttycombe Invitational on September 28th.
