Gonzaga University
WCC Championships
Men's XC Takes Second at WCC Championships
10/28/2022 1:20:00 PM | Cross Country
Zags knock off No. 14 Portland behind Smith's third-place finish
PORTLAND, Ore. — Gonzaga Men's Cross Country knocked off No. 14 Portland en route to a second-place finish at the West Coast Conference Championships at Fernhill Park on Friday, with Wil Smith leading the way in third place for his second consecutive All-WCC finish.
No. 2 BYU took first place in the team standings, with Portland, Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount rounding out the Top 5 teams behind GU.
Smith's 22:11.5 time and third-place individual finish made him the only non-BYU runner in the race's Top Seven. Yacine Guermali was the next-highest placing Zag at 15th with a time of 22:42.7. The Bulldogs finished second behind the Cougars for the second straight year despite an off day from James Mwaura, who took second as an individual last year but finished 17th overall this year with a time of 22:49.9.
"The big goal was to get Portland, because we needed a point back after Nuttycombe," said Smith post-race. "Things didn't go perfectly, but it's definitely a step in the right direction — and if we keep putting the pieces together, things can go pretty well for us at Regionals and hopefully Nationals."
Cullen McEachern (18th, 22:50.3), Kyle Radosevich (20th, 22:51.9), Riley Moore (23rd, 23:05.0) and Bryce Cerkowniak (32:16.8) rounded out the rest of GU's point-scorers, with Dominic Arce (33rd, 23:26.9), Cooper Laird (38th, 23:41.6) and Evan Bates (42nd, 23:56.9) ensuring all 10 Zag runners finished in the race's Top 50.
"It definitely says a lot about where we're headed — all those guys can race better and I feel like that's a kind of a testament to who we are as a team," Smith said. "If we put everything together on the right day, we're super deep and we can compete with a lot of the best teams in the nation."
