It was a tough weekend for Vandal cross country as the women’s team finished fifth while the men’s team finished tenth at the Dellinger Invitational.
Idaho junior Hannah Kiser, the defending Dellinger collegiate champion, finished seventh. The race featured several top regionally and nationally ranked teams as well as several non-collegiate runners that didn’t factor into the scoring.
Idaho’s women’s team finished with 125 points and a fifth place finish out of seven teams. All four of the teams that beat the Vandals were either regionally or nationally ranked.
Kiser’s 17:05 minute finish in the women’s five-kilometer race led the way for the Vandals. Despite running 20 seconds slower than her winning pace last year, Kiser has the top time in the WAC so far this season by a 23-second margin.
Junior Alycia Butterworth was the second Vandal to cross the finish line and 20th overall in 17:42. Butterworth finished ahead of teammate and fellow junior Emily Paradis in a pack of six runners that finished less than five seconds apart. Paradis crossed in 17:44 with a 23rd place finish. Each returning runner for the Vandal women ran slower than their 2011 Dellinger time.
True freshman Halie Raudenbush finished 36th and redshirt freshman Abby Larson finished 39th to round out the scoring for the Vandal women.
The No. 3 ranked Oregon women won the meet with 18 points and all seven of their runners in the top 10.
On the men’s side, the young Idaho team finished 10th out of 10 teams with a score of 240. Senior Barry Britt finished first for the Vandals, crossing in 17th in 24:18 on the eight-kilometer men’s course.
Senior Jeff Osborn finished second for the Vandals and 51st overall with his time of 25:28. Osborn was one of the few Vandals to post a course personal record, beating last year’s time by 16 seconds.
The freshman trio of Santos Vargas (53rd), Colton Hastings (59th) and Will Austin-Cray (60th) completed the scoring for the Vandal men.
Third-ranked BYU finished first on the men’s side with a score of 32 and all five scorers in the top 10.
The Vandals will be split in their next meets with a few runners competing at Louisville, Ky., for NCAA Pre-Nationals and the rest of the runners in Lewiston for the Inland Northwest Cross Country Classic. Both meets take place on Saturday, Oct. 13.
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]
File photo by Tony Marcolina | Argonaut
Kasey Hattrup, Santos Vargas and Jeff Osborn warm up before practice Sept. 19 on the SprinTurf . The men’s team finished 10th at the Dellinger Invitional over the weekend.