The Vandal women’s cross-country team won its second WAC crown in as many years, and the men’s team finished third at the championship race Saturday in Honolulu.
Solid running by four sophomores carried the women’s team to a 15-point victory. The Vandal women had three top-five finishers — all of them sophomores — including second-place overall Hannah Kiser.
“There’s obviously a lot of sophomores on our team,” Kiser said. “We all kind of stepped up.”
Kiser finished the 5K course in 17:55.8, followed by Emily Paradis in fourth with 18:29.5 and Alycia Butterworth in fifth at 18:36.6. Senior Anna Kalbrener in eighth and sophomore Holly Stanton in 19th rounded out scoring for the Vandals.
Kiser finished in second in the conference final — the first time this year where she didn’t finish first.
“She struggled to finish with the heat and humidity and essentially had to jog it in,” coach Wayne Phipps said. “Give her a ton of credit for gutting it out and finishing the race for the team. A lot of people would have dropped out in that situation, but she stuck with it to make sure the team got the points.”
Phipps, Kiser, Paradis, Butterworth and Kalbrener received All-WAC honors.
The Vandal men’s team also had a solid finish, placing third with a score of 59. Utah State took home the men’s championship with 35 points. Unlike the women’s team, the Vandal men’s team was composed of only upper classmen.
Top Vandal finisher junior Barry Britt placed second overall, completing the 8K run in 25:16.4. Behind him was senior Markus Geiger in third, with 25:26.
“When you think about Markus Geiger’s career, he never finished worse than fourth at a conference meet,” Phipps said. “Barry Britt has had two great WAC performances and for Dubie, the improvements he’s made have been incredible, and it’s all a testament to his hard work and sacrifices the last few years.”
Senior Jeremiah Dubie was the third Vandal to cross the finish line. He took seventh overall with his time of 25:52.9
All three of the top Vandal finishers received first team All-WAC honors.
The Vandals suffered a setback when senior Stephane Cole experienced running cramps before he recovered for a strong finish.
“He really started cramping up and had to stop, but then he came back and still finished strongly for us,” Phipps said. “It just didn’t work out for him today, but I know he’s going to rebound for us this year.”
The WAC Championships are over but the season is not for Vandal men’s and women’s cross-country. The NCAA Regional Championships on Nov. 12 in Palo Alto, Calif., still awaits.
“Today was not our best race and it wasn’t the best of conditions, but I know that if we get everyone running their race on the same day, we have a really good shot of jumping up and surprising some people in the region,” Phipps said.