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 The Vandal women's cross country team run as a "pack" during practice in the old Arboretum on Oct. 23 2007. File Photo
The women’s Western Athletic Conference cross country defending champions started the season strong at their first competition.
Despite competing without three of their strongest runners, the women’s team came away with first and second place finishes at the Clash of the Inland Northwest competition Sept. 6 in Spokane.
Allix Lee-Painter took first in the women’s 4k course with a time of 15 minutes 20.4 seconds and true freshman Teegan Schoch took second in her collegiate debut running in at 15:42.6.
Idaho coach Wayne Phipps’ women have begun to make winning the norm.
“They’ve made it look easy over the last little bit,” Phipps said. “They win more often than they don’t.”
Phipps said he doesn’t have to do much to motivate the returning championship team.
“It hasn’t really been an issue or a factor for the returners, Phips said. “They come in each year knowing that’s what they want to do. We have our team goals set out at the beginning, and it’s always to win a conference championship.”
Phipps’ coaching efforts will be focused more on training the
new freshmen.
“Even though you’ve got some background information, you just don’t know your athletes yet,” he said.
Phipps said the hardest part is not knowing how the freshmen are going to respond to certain types of training and said it’s about finding out how they’re feeling
about practice.
“It’s exciting having a whole new team of men and women,” Phipps said.
Junior Steven Potratz said all the new faces set this year apart.
He and the veterans said they’re passing on to the new members the same traditions of working hard and having fun.
“It’s tough losing a bunch of guys like we did, but we do have quite a few new guys and I could see us up there at the top,” Potratz said.
The expectations after finishing first in women’s competition and second in men’s competition last year hasn’t taken its toll on the Vandals.
Senior Matt Racine said there’s always pressure going into the season to finish where you did the year before but he said the success is more a motivator than anything.
“There’s always expectation to do well and at least finish where you did last year,” Racine said. “No matter where we think we’re going to finish, no matter where we’re projected to finish, we’re always thinking the top two or three in the conference,” Racine said.
Junior Melissa McFaddan said she’s excited with the future of the young team and doesn’t think there’s a reason why they can’t be one of the top teams in conference.
“I think we have really great teamwork and I’ve seen improvement since they’ve been here,” McFaddan said. “Even though we’re young I think we have a really good chance to have a really strong team and be really competitive.”
Allix Lee-Painter said she’s become more comfortable despite the mounting success, pressure and expectation over the last years.
“Every year I’ve been here, I’ve settled more and more into it and I really feel like I’ve settled into the runner that I’ve become,” Lee-Painter said. “I’m having a lot of fun now and I’m not getting nervous.”
Lee-Painter was named WAC Women’s Cross Country Athlete of the Week for Sept. 1-7 after she finished first of 41 at the Clash of the Inland Northwest. The team will compete for the second time Saturday at the Sundodger Invitational in Seattle.
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