Going into the Washington Invitational Saturday in Seattle, Idaho coach Travis Floeck said it would probably be the toughest meet in the entire nation all year long.
Ranked teams competing in the meet included Northern Arizona (No. 2), Portland (No. 5), Stanford (No. 6), Indiana (No. 7), Villanova (No. 9), and many other top-30 teams on the men’s side. The women’s side included Oregon (No. 3), Stanford (No. 4), Villanova (No. 13) and Washington (No. 15).
“We knew coming in that it was going to be a challenging meet with all of the ranked teams,” Idaho coach Travis Floeck said. “It was a tough day in that sense but I wanted the team to see that level of competition earlier in the year than at the conference or regional meet.”
In addition to racing tough competition, the race was also the first for the Vandals at the standard 8-kilometer men’s and 6-kilometer women’s distances.
Senior Cody Helbling crossed the finish line first for the Vandals on the men’s side finishing 31st in 24 minutes, 13 seconds. Sophomore Tim Delcourt (61st), Sophomore Nathan Stark (68th) and Junior Santos Vargas (70th) finished next four the Vandals.
Junior Morgan Choate, junior Cayle Turpen, sophomore Sean Hollenbeck and sophomore Christopher Black were the last racers to cross the finish line in the 96-racer field. Idaho finished 11th out of 11 teams in the competitive field.
On the women’s side, freshman Sierra Speiker led that Vandals placing 49th with a time of 21:26. Junior Alex Sciocchetti was the second Vandal to finish placing 69th with a new personal record of 21:46. Junior Abby Larson (75th), sophomore Alex Siemens (78th) and sophomore Emma Balazs (79th) rounded out scoring for the Vandals.
Idaho has a couple weeks off before competing in the Inland Empire Challenge Oct. 18 at Lewiston.
“I think we’re going to learn a lot about our team from this meet,” Floeck said. “We’re going to keep working hard and move forward.”
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]