Monday, October 23, 2023
by Thomas Lal

PORTLAND, Ore. – For the second year in a row the Western Washington cross country team swept its way to a pair of conference championships and earned itself GNAC Team of the Week honors.

The Vikings captured both the men’s and women’s titles in Anchorage on Saturday, taking the men’s race with a score of 37 points while the women scored 49 points. The wins mark the seventh title for the men’s side and the third for the Western Washington women. Junior Kevin McDermott also became the second Vikings runner to capture the men’s individual championship.

McDermott finished the rolling 8K course in a time of 24:43.5, four seconds ahead of runner-up Johan Correa of Central Washington after the pair battled all the way through the last 100 meters. McDermott’s effort headed up a Vikings team that placed all seven of its scoring runners in the top 20.

McDermott’s victory sends him into the West Region Championships with three top-15 finishes in three races this season after taking fourth at the Bill Roe Classic on Sept. 23 and 12th in the Lewis Crossover on Oct. 7.  McDermott let out a triumphant yell as he crossed the finish line in first, exactly where he wanted to be after completing his course preview a day before.

“On my preview I picked a spot on the hill where I decided that, if I was in contention, that was where I was going to make my move,” McDermott said following the race. “I hit that spot today and gave it everything I had. I let out a couple of yells down the home stretch because it really hurt, but it was a good race and a good finish.”

Western Washington senior Andrew Oslin finished in fifth with a time of 25:07.9  while juniors Ryan Clough and Jeret Gillingham finished in ninth and 10th, respectively, just four-tenths of a second apart to make it four Vikings in the top 10. Jalen Javurek, Samuel Lingwall and Jason Blinn rounded out the scoring effort for WWU coach T.J. Garlatz’s side in 12th, 16th and 19th, respectively.

“They have been working really hard and this was our best race of the year so far,” Garlatz said after the race. “We know that we still have some room to go up, but seeing Kevin (McDermott) be the first Western men’s runner to win since ’02 was pretty special. He has been working really hard, and to get to all those guys up front – it was a great day.”

On the women’s side, it was sophomore Ashley Reeck who led the Vikings to victory with a fourth-place finish in a 6K time of 21:16.9. The performance paced a Western Washington squad that also put all seven of its scoring runners in the top 20. Reeck’s latest showing continued a strong season where she took victory at the Puget Sound Invite on Sept. 2 along with an eighth-place finish at the Lewis Crossover on Oct. 7.

“Coming into it, that was something we definitely wanted to achieve again,” Reeck said on the Vikings defending their 2022 title after the race. “We knew we had the talent and fitness to do it today, but the whole GNAC is incredibly talented this year. We knew it was going to be a big challenge, but everybody put in the work for it.”

Reeck was joined in the top 10 by sophomore teammate Ila Davis in seventh with Davis crossing the line about 14 seconds later. Senior Marian Ledesma came through in 11th in a time of 21:46.3 and was followed by the trio of Meara Nystrom, Sophie Wright, and GNAC Freshman of the Year Ella Edens in 13th, 14th and 15th, respectively, with all three covered by just four seconds. Junior Emma Smith closed out the scoring for WWU in 18th with a time of 22:03.9.

“It was a great start to the day,” Garlatz said. “We knew coming into it that it was going to be a tough battle with a couple of those teams up front. We knew we needed some good up-front power to step up, and we have a really deep team. They really embraced a tough course, and watching our 4-5-6 runners come up the hill determined to win the title for the team was really special.”

The Western Washington men and women will both be back on the course at the NCAA West Region Championships on Saturday, Nov. 4 at the Ash Creek Preserve in Monmouth, Ore. The top three finishing teams at that meet will receive an automatic spot in the NCAA Championships on Nov. 18 in Joplin, Mo., with 10 at-large teams also selected to run in the NCAA Championships meet.