Cross Country At Montana Friday Facing New Opportunity
9/28/2011 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
SPOKANE, Wash. - Gonzaga University's men's and women's cross country runners get another opportunity Friday to prove to the coaching staff why they should be on the travel roster for the upcoming West Coast Conference Championship when the Bulldogs head to Missoula, Mont., for the Montana Invitational.
The rare Friday meet is a change in the schedule as the meet was originally set for Saturday but was moved to avoid conflict with a home football game. Friday's meet will start at 9 a.m. PDT with the women's 5K followed by the men's 8K at 10:30 a.m. PDT.
Head coach Pat Tyson said it's another opportunity to do well to impress the coaches for a WCC berth as the Bulldogs only have one more meet left after this week prior to the WCC Championship Oct. 29.
"Another opportunity to show you are the person that deserves to be in the lineup," Tyson said of the purpose behind this week's meet. "I realize we've only had five or six days of recovery, but you have to man up and woman up. This is D-I. Every time you get an opportunity on stage you have to get it done and as coaches we are watching carefully. We'll use the meet at Spokane Falls in a couple of weeks as well. Last year when we did the Spokane Falls meet, Brent Felnagle and Willie Milam weren't even on my radar and they ran so well you had to put them in the WCC and knocked out a couple of guys I thought were going to go."
Tyson thought his teams took a big step last week as both the men and women finished second in the 27-team Erik Anderson Invitational.
"With that many teams I don't think you could really ask for better than two seconds. I don't think that's ever been done before in Gonzaga history in a meet of that number of teams, realizing they aren't all high end D-I competitions. Still, in the journey we are on with these young, pretty much walk-on athletes we're really happy with that went on last Saturday," Tyson said.
Last Saturday was the first time the men had competed in a full 8K and the women in a 6K, and with the short turnaround because of a Friday meet this week Tyson said his troops will have to find a way to get it done.
"What we're hoping is the kids are able to understand sometimes you have a high-volume workout load and you still have to get it done. We're looking at it from the attitude that we certainly ran a hard 8K or 6K and you don't have a long turnaround time to get ready for the next show. We're taking it from a different angle. It's all part of the journey. Let's see how well we can run, maybe not in an ideal situation. We feel really good about it. We feel good about competing in a smaller venue against some D-I schools," he noted.
But he looks for strong competition from both the host Grizzlies and Montana State University.
"We know MSU and Montana competed against each other in the MSU Invitational earlier this season. We know MSU's men are pretty good. They are ranked in their region. We know the Montana women went to the NCAA last year and are pretty good. But the depth of both teams isn't as great as ours. If you had to put things on paper it's going to be a barnburner. Scored as dual meets it could be 27-28 or 27-29. Our depth is going to be a plus and I think we're coming off a lot of positive emotions the last two competitions at Oregon and this past weekend. Our mindset and our goal is to win. Can we do that, I don't know," Tyson explained.
The women will be without Emily Thomas for a second straight week as she is out for health reasons.
"On the women's side it will be tough with Emily out. That's not a great thing, but we're just asking everybody else to suck it up. Maggie Jones will be back in the line-up. We're real proud of Lindsay Drake and where she's at right now, and Erin Bergmann is number two as a freshman. Emily Albrecht, Elizabeth Ryan and Krista Beyer all stepped it up last week. We have a line-up, even without Emily, that we feel can be very competitive against the Bobcats and the Griz," Tyson predicted.
Drake finish second last weekend to pace the Bulldogs to second place.
Tyson said the men are coming into the week about as healthy as they've been this year.
"On the men's side, we have just about everybody in really god shape. The only guy kind of iffy is Colin O'Neil who has a little hip issue that has been bothering him since high school. He said maybe this is one where he doesn't want to aggravate it and I agree," Tyson said. "We've got Andrew Walker back in the line-up for the first time this season. He'll be a little rusty, but Tate Kelly was rusty last week in his first race and was our number three man and looked very good. Another guy we counted on early was Erik Fagan. He's healthy but really rusty, too. We've got a lot of depth on the guy's side. Nate Gesell, coming off his first number one position for the Zags, Willie Milam was a little ill and still ran a solid second, surprise freshman Alex Foote was our fourth guy and Robert Walgren whose had a little knee problem was our fifth man last week and is fit to go. I like our depth."
Gesell placed seventh to lead the men's contingent to second place last Saturday.
The WCC squad size for the championship has been upped from seven to nine, something Tyson said is becoming more and more common within conferences. And the battle for those nine spots is fierce on both the men's and women's side.
"It's kind of exciting when you have a team where you don't have a lot of scholarships you have to be creative. I'm so glad Gonzaga has let us have a bigger squad. It gives us the luxury to have more and out of that you hope the cream rises. Right now there are 15 or 16 guys. Our number 16 person could be in our top nine on game day. And on the women's side it's nearly the same. There are some people fighting for that top nine and that's a good thing," Tyson said.
