Men's Cross Country | 11.07.2025

RESULTS
SALEM, Ore. – Kobe Wessels earned the second All-Cascade Conference cross country honor of his career after a top 15 finish at the 2025 Cascade Conference Cross Country Championships, presented by U.S. Bank, on Friday. The LC State men finished eighth as a team.
 
No. 10 Eastern Oregon won the team title with No. 9 Southern in second and No. 12 College of Idaho in third. No. 15 Trinity Western (B.C.) was fourth and No. 20 Corban (Ore.) was fifth.
 
"Challenging day for us at conference," coach Mike Collins said. "We knew it was going to be like that though as we are in probably the toughest single conference in the entire nation, so the bar is raised very high every year for us. On the men's side we knew we had a very tough hill to climb for the day to earn our spot at the national meet. I know the guys put their hearts out there, but a few late season injuries and a few illnesses here and there probably held us back a little bit. In the end we just didn't have what it took to take us up to that next level."
 
Wessels led the Warriors with a 14^th-place finish in the field of 100 runners. He earned All-CCC honors with a time of 25:11.0 and has a strong possibility of an individual national bid. Should LC State not advance to nationals, Wessels could advance as an individual since he finished in the top 15.
 
"Kobe had another outstanding day to finish in the top fifteen, and assuming that the first four teams in our conference make it to nationals, which they should, he will earn his individual spot at the national championships again this year," Collins explained.
 
Freshman Sven Druijff was the next LC State runner across the line and was 36^th overall with a time of 25:55.9.
 
Seniors Connor Alexander and Alexander Fry finished 39^th and 40^th, respectively. Alexander clocked a time of 25:59.9 and Fry finished in 26:04.9. Tristin O'Brien rounded out the top five in 59^th (26:46.8).
 
"Sven and Connor both had really good days as well," Collins added. "I really would like to give a shout out to Tristin who has been really battling an injury here for the last couple of weeks and put his heart out there today." 
 
Clay Shumaker, Malachi Walsh and Ben Vernon placed 64^th, 65^th and 66^th, respectively, with times of 27:14.6, 27:22.6 and 27:27.8. Manuel Valdez was 79^th (28:30.9) and Dawson Welliver finished 86^th (29:09.4).
 
"We will look forward to hopefully hearing some announcements on Monday," Collins said. "When it comes to team and individual qualifiers, we will continue to prepare as if we are going and we'll look forward to hopefully representing the college and our community in the best way we can."
 
UP NEXT
LC State will await the announcement of teams to qualify for the 2025 NAIA Cross Country National Championships which will be released next week.
 
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