The wind was blowing and the rain was falling hard, but all the WAC runners were behind him when Idaho freshman Nicholas Boersma crossed the finish line. It was the first time a Vandal runner had won a conference championship since Vic Dyrgall won the Pacific Coast Conference title in 1941.
Photo by Philip Vukelich | Argonaut
The Vandal men’s cross country team, from left to right: Santos Vargas, Morgan Choate, Mickey Day, Nicholas Boersma, Nathan Stark, Cody Helbling and Tim Delcourt
Nicholas Boersma finished the men’s 8-kilometer course in 25 minutes, 26.70 seconds to win the 2013 WAC Championship.
“That was a crazy race,” Boersma said. “This win is for all of us to be honest. It was a great day for us and everyone ran well. To come out with the win was a great way to top it off.”
Junior Cody Helbling finished second and sophomore Santos Vargas finished third in a photo finish to claim the top three spots for Idaho. But despite going 1-2-3, the Vandals fell to Utah Valley. The Wolverines finished with 38 points to Idaho’s 43 with more depth overall. Utah Valley had four runners in the top 10 and all seven in the top 14 to seal the victory.
Idaho’s second-place finish is a great accomplishment considering the Vandals only returned one runner from their 2012 top five in Vargas. Idaho coach Wayne Phipps reloaded his squad with a talented BYU transfer in Helbling and a group of talented freshmen. Helbling earned the WAC Cross Country Athlete of the Year after being Idaho’s top runner all regular season while Boersma claimed the WAC Freshman of the Year with his victory.
“For our guys to go 1-2-3, get Freshman of the Year and Athlete of the Year and really be a couple of seconds away from winning the team title is just an incredible achievement by the team in general,” Phipps said. “And to think that we did that relying on four freshman and two sophomores … I don’t you can ask too much more of those guys.”
Coming into college, Boersma had never won a cross country race. In fact, he was known more as 800-meter track runner.
“Nick (Boersma) is an absolute super talent,” Phipps said. “For a guy who is an 800-meter runner … to commit that fully to the 8K distance, I think you’re probably getting only a little glimpse of how a good a runner Nick Boersma actually is. I think he’s going to be a guy who’s going to have an incredible career at the Univeristy of Idaho.”
The Vandals had their best WAC finish since 2007 despite fielding a mostly freshman squad and having their top runner from the start of the season out with injury. Tim Delcourt was Idaho’s top time trial runner to start the season but he missed most of the season with a shin injury.
In addition to Boersma, Helbling and Idaho scored points from Nathan Stark (15th), Mickey Day (22nd) and Morgan Choate (26th) to round out scoring.
“We fell short (of a WAC title) but not due to a lack of effort,” Phipps said. “Those guys gave everything not just at that meet but everyday in practice.”
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]