Competing in the West Coast Conference Championships Oct. 31 in Crystal Springs Calif. the Pepperdine cross country team did exactly as the preseason polls indicated with the women taking fifth and the men taking sixth in their respective races. Each race had eight schools competing.
Most notable of the Pepperdine runners was junior Chelsea Wishard who took third place for the second consecutive year only three seconds behind the second-place finisher. Her time of 21:14 is 53 seconds faster than her bronze-medal-finish last year and these consecutive placements make Wishard the first Wave in the program’s history to record consecutive top-10 finishes at the WCC Championships.
“Chelsea once again was our highlight performer head coach Robert Radnoti said. She was almost a minute faster than last year and I’m excited about the progress she continues to make. We’re now looking forward to NCAA West Regionals in a few weeks.”
The women’s team placed fifth overall with 129 total points. Even though they didn’t take first Wishard praised her teammates.
“I’m really proud of our girls’ team performance this year Wishard said. We all had some of our best races of the season and did really well at pacing off each other and finishing strong. We also improved our overall placing from last year and were able to finish in fifth place as a team which was really exciting.”
San Francisco placed first in the women’s race with 45 points. It was their first time in program history winning the conference. By doing so they put an end to Portland’s seven-year winning streak.
The Pepperdine men’s team did almost as well as the women placing sixth overall with 187 points 50 points down from their fifth-place finish last year.
Sophomore Kenny Smith was the top finisher for the Pepperdine men’s team with his time of 26:28 which is a three-minute improvement from his time in 2008.
For the 31st consecutive year Portland’s men’s team took first with 34 points.
Radnoti sees his team’s performance as a continuous improvement.
“We performed as the preseason polls indicated with the men finishing sixth and the women fifth but I thought there were a number of good runs for Pepperdine today Radnoti said. We continued to make progress all year long and we definitely ran better than last year.”
The Waves continue on to the NCAA West Regionals on Nov. 14 in Eugene Ore.
Wishard has a lot of confidence in the team’s durability and expected performance in Oregon.
“Hopefully at Regionals we can all continue to improve and work together to finish our season strong and with our best performances Wishard said. Even though we were faced with some challenges early on this season we all have been able to come together and help each other focus on our workouts and training which has led to a great season.”
