Individual Results
Team Scores
MOSCOW, Idaho (October 28, 2016) – In Northern Arizona Head Coach Eric Heins’ final Big Sky meet, it was only fitting to go out in a big way.
NAU swept the Big Sky Cross Country Championships for the second time in three years behind a dominant sweep from the men and a hard-fought victory for the women.
Though it was to be expected, the unanimous No. 1 team in the country NAU men looked the part grabbing the top six spots and dominating the all-conference team with seven runners in the top nine. Futsum Zienasellassie earned his second career Big Sky XC individual title, breaking away from his pack of teammates to finish the 8,000-meter course in 23 minutes, 58.3 seconds.
Zienasellassie was followed by five straight teammates, marking just the second time in league history a team has achieved the lowest-possible score of 15 points and becoming the first program to have the top six conference finishers. Matthew Baxter was the runner-up in 24:12.9, Tyler Day (24:16.1) and Cory Glines (24:31.7) duplicated their finishes of third and fourth from last season, and Andy Trouard (24:32) and Nathan Weitz (24:32.2) followed for NAU. Geordie Beamish took ninth and also picked up all-conference honors as well as the conference’s new Freshman of the Year award.
NAU was the first team to place seven runners in the top-10 since doing it at the 2009 meet in Greeley, Colo. The Lumberjacks also picked up their ninth Big Sky title in the past decade and 26th overall.
Defending champion and No.20-ranked Southern Utah also gave a good showing, placing its top five in the top 12 overall and claiming the other three all-conference spots for a second-place finish. Matt Wright (seventh, 24:38.9) and Josh Collins (eighth, 24:44.5) each picked up a second consecutive all-conference performance, and freshman Aidan Reed also made the team with a 10
th-place finish (24:53.2). Kasey Knevelbaard and George Espino followed in 11
th and 12
th to give SUU 48 points.
Jordan Cross and Dallin Leatham finished 13
th and 15
th overall, respectively to help the Weber State men take third in the team standings with 92 points. Idaho finished fourth (174) with a tiebreaker over Idaho State and Montana State (176) rounded out the top six.
On the women’s side, NAU entered the meet having lost by a narrow point to Weber State at the Wisconsin Nuttycombe Invitational two weeks ago, and exalted revenge today. The Lumberjack women had three all-conference performers and placed its scoring five in the top 16 to win its second title in three seasons and 19
th overall.
Melanie Townsend paced NAU in fourth (17:38.6), while Kylie Goo (sixth, 17:54.4) and Mikayla Malaspina (eighth, 17:57.9) also placed in the top 10. Emily Roughan and Paige Gilchrist rounded out the top five in 14
th and 16
th overall, each finishing ahead of WSU’s No. 4 & 5 runners. NAU defeated WSU by 12 points with a score of 48.
While WSU wasn’t able to secure its fifth league title in the past six seasons, it still took home some bragging rights with Ellie Child claiming the individual title. Child covered the 5K course in 17:13.7, distancing herself from Eastern Washington’s Sarah Reiter (second, 17:23.1) late in the race. Hailey Whetten followed in third for the Wildcats with a time of 17:29.
The SUU women placed third at the meet, led by a fifth-place finish from Josie Riggs (17:43.3). Idaho State’s Jenica Dodge (seventh, 17:56.1), Idaho’s Kara Story (ninth, 17:59.5) and Portland State’s Sarah Medved (10
th, 18:04.5) rounded out the all-conference team. Story was awarded the first Big Sky Freshman of the Year and helped the Vandals take fourth in the team standings.