June 13, 2011
SPOKANE, Wash. - With his standout on the men's side redshirting this season, Gonzaga University fourth-year cross country coach Pat Tyson thinks he has the perfect schedule to gauge the progress of his men's and women's teams.
Senior Chris Boyle, fourth in the West Coast Conference Championship and 27th in the NCAA West Regional last season, will redshirt the upcoming season, Tyson said Monday upon releasing the 2011 schedule.
"This is a perfect schedule in particular since we're redshirting Chris to save him for a big year down the road and get these young kids more seasoned," Tyson explained. "The schedule replicates last year so it will give us a clear idea of how our progression is because we can measure last year's times against this year's times."
Fans will get a chance to see the Bulldogs in action three times locally, beginning with the Inland Northwest Cross Country Classic Sept. 3 co-hosted by Gonzaga and Eastern Washington University. The meet will be run at Mead High School, where Tyson coached cross country and track and field from 1986-2004.
The Bulldogs will be in the Erik Anderson Invitational Sept. 24 hosted by the Community Colleges of Spokane and run at Plantes Ferry in the Spokane Valley. Gonzaga will also be in the field of the Inland Invitational Oct. 15 run at Spokane Falls Community College.
The schedule also has the Bulldogs at the Sundodger Invitational hosted by the University of Washington and the Montana Invitational hosted by the University of Montana.
The regular season concludes with the WCC Championship Oct. 29, which takes on a new look this season with the addition of Brigham Young University.
"The WCC is one of those things where yes, we are looking good but everybody is looking good. Add BYU in the mix and it really changes things. They are real. Their women are always a trophy kind of team and their men are always a trophy kind of team. I don't think Portland is going to have the luxury of running their second tier team at the conference," Tyson said of the impact the Cougars will have.
Tyson said his runners are eyeing an upper division finish, something he believes the squads are close to achieving.
"Our goal is to see if we can be no worse than the middle of the pack. We need to beat those teams we beat last year, and Santa Clara edged us out on both the men's and women's side. There is a team (SCU) we are close to. I believe if we continue to progress the way we are it's a team we can beat. Then see where we mix up with San Francisco, although they look pretty good. But let's see if we can get in that top four. That would be exciting."
The Bulldogs will probably have to do it with youth as four of the women's competitors and five of the men's runners in the WCC Championship a year ago were either freshmen or sophomores. The redshirt season of Boyle leaves juniors Tate Kelly and Christian Burger as the veterans with the departure of senior Matt Bejar. The women lost seniors Laura Volcheff and Brittany O'Regan, but return senior Brenn Donnelly and juniors Lauren Bergam and Kayla Lloyd to give experience to the younger runners.
One other thing BYU brings to the conference is a change in the number of entries each team is allowed, moving from seven to nine runners for the WCC Championship. Team results will still be based on the traditional top five finishers for each school.
"We're now on par with all the other conferences in the United States," Tyson said of the change in conference numbers. "It gives you the luxury of running a couple of younger athletes and they get the experience at a WCC Championship, high-end meet and that will make them better down the road. Or let's say we have a close runner and you're not sure who your seventh is for the West Regional, this becomes the tiebreaker. We unanimously pushed for it. BYU is use to this and at our coaches meeting they were definitely lobbying hard for it and sold just about everybody on it. It will make our conference better."
