Men's Cross Country | 01.28.2021

LEWISTON, Idaho – Jan. 29 will mark the first race for Lewis-Clark State Cross Country since November 2019; nearly 14 months ago. The Warriors are ready to hit the course with many familiar faces and as members of a new conference.

THE SCHEDULE
The Warriors will open the season on Jan. 29 at the Bushnell Invitational, hosted by fellow Cascade Conference member, Bushnell. It will be the first action LC State sees as members of the conference.

The schedule has a different look than previous seasons, mostly due to the pandemic. The Warriors will host two home meets (Feb. 12 and Feb. 26) and will travel once for a regular-season meet. LC State historically runs really well at home, with some of the programs best times coming on the course in the Orchards.

"It'll be interesting to see how the home meets go because our course has changed a little bit," Head Coach Mike Collins said. "I know that normally when we run on our home course, when we get a chance to run a second time we almost always run better the second time. We train on it all the time, but racing is a different story. I expect us to race relatively well the first time, and the second time, if the patterns follows, we should be better."

The atmosphere of the races will also be different. Due to COVID restrictions, less teams are traveling and many meets are limiting the number of participants in each race.

"We are used to our home meet being very big with eight to 12 teams with 100 or more in each race," Collins explained. "This year we are looking at races with less than 50. That changes the competitive dynamic."

Another scheduling obstacle will be the overlap of both the indoor and outdoor track and field seasons. Indoor nationals will place the week of March 3. The first outdoor meet is scheduled for March 19 with nationals happening at the end of May. Cross country nationals are set for April 9. The Warriors have multiple runners that run both cross country and mid distance track, but the training differs for the two.

"For a lot of the kids it's not that big of a deal because the distance doesn't change much, but for the middle-distance runners, that is the group where we would normally start focusing on more speed in April," Collins explained. "Now in April hopefully we have a cross country national championship. I think we are going to be OK. It's going to take some patience and some commitment to realize that we can do both and we can be successful at both, and quite honestly, as long as they stay healthy, the men have a legitimate shot at winning."
 
THE MEN
The Warrior men return to racing after putting together the best season in the program's history in 2019. Led by three All-Americans, all of which are returning this season, LC State placed third overall at nationals for the team's best finish ever. Cole Olsen placed fourth in the field of 333, while Clayton VanDyke finished 11^th and Chase Barrow was 15^th. The "Three Cs" led the Warriors all last season, including in the Frontier Conference Championship where Olsen was named the Frontier Conference Runner of the Year.

The Warriors also return All-Frontier Conference honorees Connor Turpin and Dillon Dawson. The group of five placed in the top 10 at the conference meet to help LC State to its final Frontier Conference title in 2019.

"Cole and Clayton are looking really good. Obviously, Chase was an All-American last year, and he is getting back into it nicely," Collins said. "The two guys that were our fourth and fifth runners at nationals last year, Connor and Dillon, both look very good. They are much improved and weren't bad to begin with. That is where the big difference comes because that is where the score changes."

Others to look for will be returner Josh Lay, and freshman Drew Larson.

THE WOMEN
On the women's side, LC State returns its top runner the last two years in Emily Adams. Adams was a cross country All-American in 2018, and battled through severe health challenges to earn a third-place overall finish and All-American status in the indoor 800m in 2020.

"Obviously with Emily coming back, we have a girl that was an All-American two years ago," Collins said. "Even with the challenges with some of the health stuff last year, she bounced back with an All-American finish in track that nobody expected. She is providing great leadership and running well."

Callie Johnson and Rylee Brown have been consistent competitors for the women in recent years, and will help lead the team this season.

"Callie Johnson is probably our first or second girl in all of our workouts," Collins stated. "She is running extremely well, so we are excited about that. Rylee looks stronger than ever and she has probably been one of the most consistently strong runners we've had in the last two-three years. It is a great group of girls that is so closely packed, that I think we will be pretty good."

Names to watch this season include freshmen Geraldin Correa and Abigail Gorton.

"We have probably the best group of freshmen I have ever had," Collins explained, "Geraldin is going to be a superstar by the time it's all done. She is extremely talented and a wonderful young lady that is going to do well. Abbie (Gorton) is going to step in really well."

THE OUTLOOK
Having not been able to compete on a course since Nov. 22, 2019, the Warriors are more than ready to hit the ground running.

"We are trying to take a lot of these obstacles that we've had this year with COVID and training and racing and team dynamic stuff and try to turn them into opportunities," Collins said. "We are just excited to get started this week."