SALEM, Ore. ? The University of Idaho men's and women's cross country teams each finished second, senior runner Allix Lee-Painter won the women's race and Vandal cross country showed its clout for the second straight season at the Charles Bowles Invitational Saturday at Salem, Ore.
“I thought overall we did a pretty good job especially considering that this last week was basically our hardest training week of the year, so we went in pretty tired,” Idaho coach Wayne Phipps said.
Lee-Painter earned her second victory of the year in her third meet with a dominant effort in the women's 5k, as she easily outdistanced the field with a time of 17:30.87. The second-best collegiate runner at the meet was more than 33 seconds behind.
“Allix was just dead tired all this week from training, so I think she was probably a little bit concerned how it was going to go for her, going in,” Phipps said. “She ran pretty conservatively over the first 3k, then pulled away pretty easily in the final 2k. She's in just fantastic shape right now.”
A pair of Vandal newcomers wrapped up Idaho's second and third spots as true freshman Teegan Schoch took seventh in 18:14.46 and junior Maike Holthuijzen came in 10th at 18:24.65. Junior Melissa McFaddan was 28th at 18:47.16 and sophomore Erica Digby was 31st with a time of 18:53.30 to cap off Idaho's five scorers and give the Vandals 61 points.
“Teegan is just doing a great job, especially for a freshman,” Phipps said. “Maike is a junior, but she's in her first cross country season?ever. For those two to be running so well is just fantastic?their improvement curve is just so steep.
“Having Melissa and Erica running so well after they weren't able to train during the summer due to injury is also really great.”
The men's team put together a solid overall team effort to take second only to Portland?a top-10 nationally-ranked team?with true freshmen leading the way.
Markus Geiger was the team's top finisher, with a time of 25:19.42 in the 8k course to come in 13th overall and sixth among collegiate runners. Senior Jeremiah Johnston was Idaho's second finisher, as he ran a 25:35.61 and took 18th overall. Freshman James Clark was the 15th collegiate finisher in a time of 25:44.56, senior Matt Racine was the 21st collegiate finisher in 26:01.26 and junior Kevin Merkling was the 25th collegiate finisher in a time of 26:05.40 to cap off Idaho's top five and give the Vandals a score of 77.
“I thought we competed really well in the men's race,” Phipps said. “We're still running with three freshmen in our top seven. I think the season looks really bright and I see us just getting better and better every week.”
Idaho will take another hard week of training before heading to the Santa Clara Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 18 in the team's final tune-up before the Western Athletic Conference Championships on Nov. 1.
