Monday, November 3, 2014

PORTLAND, Ore. - The Simon Fraser women and the Alaska Anchorage men were chosen as the co-GNAC Red Lion Team of the Week after both won the GNAC cross country championship Saturday.

Simon Fraser won its first women's cross country title as members of the GNAC. In the closest team race in conference history, the Clan placed one point ahead of Alaska Anchorage and two ahead of Western Washington.

UAA dominated the men’s meet, placing seven Seawolves in the top 10 finishers. This is the fifth consecutive GNAC championship for Alaska Anchorage.

“It was good performance by our squad,” UAA head coach Michael Friess said. “It was a very competitive GNAC championship. There were a lot of good athletes so for us to have seven of the top ten finishers is pretty impressive.”

In the women’s 6k run, the Clan placed two in the top five finishers including second place finisher Rebecca Bassett who completed her run in 20:32.08. A few seconds behind her was senior Jennifer Johnson who came in fifth.

Three more Clan members finished in the top 20 with Miryam Bassett, Kansas Mackenzie and Peggy Noel placing in 17th, 18th and 20th respectively. All five runners ran their fastest 6k of the year on Saturday.

This is the first conference title for SFU in any women’s sport since it came into the conference in 2010. The Clan finished second at this event the previous three years.

For the men’s championship, freshman Henry Cheseto from Alaska Anchorage earned the GNAC Athlete of the Year, finishing in first with a time of 24:35.91 in the 8k.  Cheseto also won the Freshman of the Year award.

The Seawolves finished with 18 total points, a conference record and three more than the lowest possible score at a meet.

Behind Cheseto was junior Dominik Notz and senior Dylan Anthony. Anthony finished in third last year and becomes the seventh male athlete in the history of the GNAC to win four-straight all-conference awards.

Rounding out the Seawolves top five finishers was GNAC Newcomer of the Year Michel Ramirez, who placed fifth with a time of 25:06.68.

“For the most part we ran a pretty solid race and a few of our athletes can improve upon what they did today. Conference is always a tough race for us because it’s a bragging rights race, but…it will give them confidence heading into the regional meet and onto the national meet,” Friess said.

Each team will be off three weeks before they compete at the NCAA Regionals on Nov. 22 in Billings, Mont.