Gonzaga Cross Country Opens Season Aug. 31 in Spokane
8/6/2013 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
SPOKANE, Wash. - Gonzaga University's men's and women's cross country teams look to continue their upward trend when the 2013 season opens Aug. 31 for the fifth time in the last six years at the Clash of the Northwest at Spokane's Mead High School.
The Bulldogs will compete in five meets leading up to the West Coast Conference Championship Nov. 2 at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. The WCC Championship carries with it a little history this year as for just the second time since the conference began men's cross country in 1975 - the women joined in 1985 - the meet will be staged in the Los Angeles area, the 1980 meet held at Loyola Marymount University.
Gonzaga will return to the Sundodger Invitational for the first time since 2010, the Sept. 14 race hosted by the University of Washington at Seattle's Lincoln Park. Gonzaga competed in the WCC Preview in Portland, Ore., last season and faced the University of Oregon in a dual meet in Sunriver, Ore., in 2011. The WCC Preview this year moves to Pepperdine.
The Erik Anderson Invitational at Plantes Ferry in the Spokane Valley is Sept. 21; the Bill Dellinger Invitational is Oct. 5 in Eugene, Ore., and the Inland Empire Classic Oct. 19 in Lewiston, Idaho, hosted by Lewis-Clark State College, will be the final tune-up prior to the WCC Championship.
The NCAA Western Regional makes its inaugural booking in Sacramento, Calif., at Haggin Oaks Golf Complex Nov. 15. The NCAA Championship is Nov. 23 at Terre Haute, Ind., for the ninth time in the last 10 years. The 2012 NCAA Championship was held in Louisville, Ky.
The opener will feature dual meet scoring with Washington State University, Eastern Washington University and the University of Idaho from the NCAA Division I ranks, with Spokane's Whitworth University and Whitman College from Walla Walla, Wash., also competing.
Gonzaga head coach Pat Tyson likes the schedule.
"The schedule in many ways is a replica of last fall. We certainly had a great opportunity to go to Portland for the WCC Preview. That made more sense than going to the Sundodger. We're going to put that one (Sundodger) back in for many good reasons. It's an opportunity to showcase Gonzaga jerseys in the Seattle Metro area for recruiting. There are a lot of high school venues going on that day. It's definitely a fast course. Some of the Top 10 lists of Gonzaga's past, this is where a majority of the performances were," Tyson said. "We'll get a little better feeling for how good we really are. We know we are a better men's team and a better women's team. Individually it's probably the greatest men's and women's team in history because that is the way we are going. We're going up, up and up. That's the direction we're headed."
While Tyson said "it would be nice to do the WCC Preview at Pepperdine, but it just doesn't work. It would be nice to do the preview at Sacramento and many teams are going to do that. It's probably in our best interests to hang on to what we consider a great schedule."
Tyson said he sees the Bulldogs exploring other meets down the road.
"In the future I could see us branching out to a Notre Dame or something like that down the road, but we'll let the season dictate where we head next year," he said.
While the Sundodger will be a good indicator, the Dellinger is the meet the Bulldogs will really focus on.
"The Dellinger is one month before the big one at Malibu," Tyson said of preparing for the WCC Championship. "The Dellinger always has some high-end teams."
Tyson said the Seattle meet is a little early for a lot of the major teams to come out.
"It's really early in Seattle and a lot of teams don't like to go out and run against the Huskies too early. There are always a few teams that will pop up in there, even a couple of WCC teams in the past. I think for us it's an opportunity to wear jerseys against the Husky women because they are always in the hunt to get a trophy, and their men have stacked up one of the best recruiting classes in their history. It has elements we like, but I think the Dellinger meet is the one that calluses you for the big show in Malibu and the one in Sacramento," Tyson noted.
Gonzaga assistant coach Patty Ley said the Sundodger could work to GU's advantage.
"One way to look at Sundodger is it's a forgiving course in the sense that it's early in the season, it runs quickly but it doesn't beat you up. It's a nice one early on to get a good feel for the distances and see where you're at and what you need to work on, but not one where we're going to spend a ton of extra time trying to recover from. We can get right back into training the next week and be ready to go come the Dellinger," she said.
Tyson and Ley said the WCC Championship will be a bit of an unknown.
"It's on campus. They gave us a preview that it would be a relatively flat course on the main campus. I just drove through Malibu about a month ago and I thought it was pretty hilly in that neighborhood," Tyson observed. "They said it would be a more forgiving loop, not super hilly, on the main campus and on a softer surface."
The weather could also be a factor, although Tyson said it was hot in Eugene for the Dellinger last year.
"Probably more likely if anything, it could be a little warm. But we're running in the morning. The temperature last year on that date and that time was 72 degrees. And you're right on the water," Tyson said of Pepperdine which sits on the edge of the Pacific Ocean on Pacific Coast Highway 1.
Ley said fall rains in Malibu could provide as much of a deterrent as anything.
"They hosted an invite a couple of years ago. One issue you could run into is rain, and when it rains it rains real hard and it could get sloppy. I know some people who ran in that invite and they said it rained hard and got pretty sloppy. Other than that I think we're going to have a great course. They can create a loop that's pretty flat with one hill," she said.
Tyson said Sacramento is going all out.
"Sacramento is going to put a bid in for the NCAA Championships. They are going big time and we're looking forward to going to Sacramento," he said.
