Drake All-WCC; Men Third, Women Fourth In WCC Championship
10/27/2012 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
PORTLAND, Ore. - Lindsey Drake made her senior year count, in the process gained a little personal redemption and helped her team back to the upper echelon.
Tate Kelly used his senior year to help his team achieve a goal and gain added respectability.
And the plane ride home Saturday night probably had some pretty happy Gonzaga University cross country runners on it.
After suffering from dehydration last year at the West Coast Conference Cross Country Championship that saw her place well back in the pack, Drake came back Saturday to finish ninth in a school-record 20:50 at Fernhill Park and earn All-WCC honors in helping Gonzaga University's women to fourth place.
Drake's time set a Gonzaga 6K school mark of 21:15 for the WCC Championship set last season by junior Emily Thomas, who, coincidentally, also finished ninth a year ago to earn All-WCC accolades.
The Bulldogs scored 105 points with junior Lauren Bergam placing fifteenth in 21:10 to earn WCC honorable mention recognition, Thomas taking 19th in 21:16, sophomore Maggie Jones 29th in 21:36 and freshman Amelia Evans taking 35th in 21:59 to round out Gonzaga's top five. That means four of Gonzaga's top five runners return next season.
The Bulldogs recorded their highest finish since placing third in 2004.
The University of San Francisco won its fourth straight WCC Championship with 26 points, placing five runners in the top 10 led by individual winner Eva Krchova in 20:35 for a one-second victory over teammate Elena Burkard as one second separated each spot form first through sixth. The University of Portland was second with 52 points and BYU third with 85. The Bulldogs beat Loyola Marymount University by five points.
Kelly, one of head coach Pat Tyson's first recruits, just missed All-WCC first-team honors by one second with his 11th place finish in 24:12 over the 8K Fernhill Park layout. But his effort, which earned him WCC honorable mention honors, helped vault the Bulldogs to third place behind the University of Portland and BYU.
The Bulldogs scored 103 points to edge the University of San Francisco by two points for third place. Portland, which had never lost a WCC title since 1979 until BYU entered the league and ended the Pilots run last year, moved back to the top with 32 points to edge BYU by one point.
Brent Felnagle led the next wave of Bulldogs as four Zags crossed the line from 21st through 27th. Felnagle, a junior, was 21st in 24:39, sophomore Colin O'Neil was 23rd in 24:44, sophomore Nick Roche finished 24th in 24:44 and senior Chris Boyle was 27th in 24:48 to round out Gonzaga's top five.
Jared Ward of BYU took individual honors in 23:42.
"It was a nice, beautiful, wet, muddy day," Tyson said. "It was cross country."
"He ran a great race, went out hard, gauged the field and hung in with that posse," Tyson said of Kelly. "It was a great finish to his WCC competition. A great race for Tate."
Kelly, a homegrown product from Spokane's Gonzaga Prep, was obviously pleased with his result and the team finish.
"I couldn't be happier. It was one of those days to remember for a long time. I've been working for this race since I entered Gonzaga in the fall of '09. The battle was for third and it was our goal to be right there. We don't have a conference for track. Cross country is what it's all about and it was great to get third and then get a sniff of sniff Portland and BYU," Kelly said.
Not bad for a guy who hadn't even thought about attending Gonzaga until his senior year.
"It was all Tyson," Kelly said of his decision to go from being a Bullpup at Gonzaga Prep to a Bulldog at Gonzaga University. "I wasn't going to Gonzaga at all until Tyson started sending me letters. I didn't look at Gonzaga very seriously until the winter or spring of my senior year. He did a great recruiting job of me. He had a vision of here and where he wanted the program to go. He said I could be a part of something special, and it doesn't get any better than that."
"It was a good effort by the men. When you reach your goal you are happy. It was a good milestone for where we're headed. We want to be there with BYU and Portland, and we're headed in the right direction. I like the direction we're headed," Tyson said.
Drake said last year never entered her mind in preparation for this year's WCC Championship.
"Honestly, not at all," she said when asked how much motivation she took from last year. "I just kept last year out of my mind. I've forgotten about that race. This year I went in with a fresh start. I didn't go in looking for revenge. My thinking was this is just another race in the season. I didn't put a lot of pressure on myself this time."
Assistant coach Patty Ley said Drake was herself.
"She looked very good and confident and ran well throughout. They had a re-start and she went out and nailed that really well," Ley said. "I think the team had a better start the second time. Lindsey got herself in that front pack and I think was just comfortable hanging in that and hung in there very well. The lead pack stayed pretty large all the way to the end and there was a surge with about 800 meters to go."
Drake thought she followed her race strategy pretty well.
"My strategy today was like it is for every race. You kind of go out the first 'K and make sure you are in position to make a move with the front pack, then the next two-to-four 'K' you keep pushing with them and keep trying to hang with the first pack; let them do the work and feed off their energy. The last 2K you want to kick as hard as you can; be in position to get a win for your team. I followed it pretty well except I dropped off the pack a little earlier and couldn't catch up. The last 2K I lost the front pack so that was disappointing," said the senior from San Diego, Calif.
Ley thought going into the meet the Bulldogs could finish as high as second in what she thought was a pretty wide open race, with as many as five teams having a shot at finishing anywhere from first to fifth.
She said one thing that hurt the Bulldogs on the restart was freshman Amelia Evans "got jammed and got caught back in the pack for about a mile and couldn't move up.
"She had a lot of ground to make up, and it's a lot tougher to make it than being closer to the front at the start," Ley said.
Evans was Gonzaga's fifth scorer in 35th place.
After Drake the pack for the Bulldogs finished a little too far back and a little more spread out than they would have liked.
"Part of it was in the past we've been a little tighter, but we're going to bring that back in a couple of weeks. We'll take a look at it," Ley said of the pack.
While somewhat disappointed with the fourth-place finish, Ley said "we're good. If the right things happened on the right day we could have been second or third. We went for it. We're going to keep going after it. The reality is we went for it and they ran well today."
Drake, however, said she and her teammates want more.
"We are not satisfied. We'll never be satisfied until we win. We're not crying, but we're hungry for more. We thought we could be in the top three. It's not horrible, but we're not happy."
The Bulldogs will compete in the NCAA West Regional Nov. 9 at Jefferson Park in Seattle.
