| Illnesses impact team’s finish |
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| Written by Ilya Pinchuk - Argonaut | ||||||
| Monday, 02 November 2009 | ||||||
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 Cross Country runners practice in the old arboreitum before the WAC championship race. The Vandal women finished fourth and the men fifth. It was the first year for Idaho where they did not have either a individual or team champion. Ilya Pinchuck/Argonaut
Some things are just not meant to be, a lesson that coach Wayne Phipps
and the cross-country squad learned first-hand this weekend at the WAC
championships. “I don’t know if it was getting over illness or the altitude, or both,” Phipps said. “It wasn’t what we hoped for, but it was not for lack of trying.” The Vandals did have several outstanding individual performances, but once again failed to get all the runners on the same page. Early in the season, Phipps said the key to winning would be to get everyone running well on the same day, and even thought it did not happen at the WAC championships, Phipps said he was still impressed with the performances. “Everyone gave a huge effort, almost to complete exhaustion,” Phipps said. Sophomore Teegan Schoch was Idaho’s top finisher at the race, cruising to a third-place finish. Schoch, who said she wanted to improve her placement in the WAC race over last year, stayed with the lead pack for the majority of the race and finished just five seconds behind the first-place finisher. Sophomore Julia Veseth, who has had dramatic improvements this year, was Idaho’s second finisher in 20th place. Veseth has been one of the most improved runners for the Vandals, and she delivered again at the WAC championships, shaving 27 places from her finish last year. On the men’s side, Markus Geiger was once again the top finisher for Idaho, finishing fourth overall and earning first team all-WAC honors in the process. Although Geiger did not improve his standing from last year, when he finished fourth and captured the freshman of the year honors. Phipps said he was very impressed with Geiger’s performance. “I thought Markus ran really well, really intelligently,” Phipps said. “He finished strong and ran well all the way through.” Jeremiah Johnston, the lone senior on the men’s squad, capped off a great running career at Idaho by finishing 37th and rounded out the scoring for the Vandals. Phipps said overall the team ran well, and he was especially impressed with the performance from the freshmen and sophomores. The young runners really evolved and matured over the course of the season Phipps said he was very happy with the improvements from the team.  Add as favorites (14) | Views: 356
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