Kearns and Martin head to Asheville for nationals
The Idaho club cycling team competed against 20 other schools in the Northwest Collegiate Cycling Conference Championship April 25-26 in Moscow.
Racers compete during the Northwest Collegiate Cycling Conference Championship April 25 in Moscow.
With five different races, the team found growth despite having one of the smallest teams in the conference.
The Vandals were highlighted by fifth-place efforts by sophomore Philip Kearns and senior Maryjane Martin in their A-class races. While the season is over for several riders this week, both kearns and Martin are heading to Ashevill, North Carolina, to represent the Vandals at the national championship.
Martin said she was content with the team effort as the team finished fifth overall out of 21 teams. The Vandals finished ahead of Montana and Washington State.
“I think that this shows how much work our racers put in, especially in our team trials,” Martin said. “The strength of our little team is impressive.”
Other riders found great rounds in the other three classes with cycling president Matthew Dabbs finishing fifth in the Men’s B-class, Braden Comstock earning seventh in Men’s C and Stacy Miller finishing highest for the Vandals with 12th in Women’s B. Martin said she was proud of the three female riders in the B-class for their hard work this season.
“Hope (Harvey-Marose), Juniper (Harvey-Marose) and Stacy (Miller), dove right into cycling this spring and finished their first season stronger than when they started,” Martin said. “Starting a sport like cycling is intimidating, and I’m really impressed with all of our racers who finished their first season.”
After the conference championship was complete, Martin had a comfortable 93-point lead over Whitman College’s Dessie Weigel. Martin has held the individual points lead for most of the season. Martin has 652 points to Weigel’s 559 after the conference championship. Kearns is ninth in the standings in Men’s A, 339 behind Montana State’s Kyle Rohan.
In the women’s B-class, Miller is 18th, Juniper is 28th and Hope is 35th in the standings among 60 riders this season. Dabbs leads the Men’s B-class by 31 points over Montana’s David Cresap with Kearns, who started in this class before moving up into the higher class, in fifth in the standings.
As a team, the Vandals finished fifth in the conference championship and scored 149 points, one point shy of fourth where Portland State finished. Whitman College earned top honors, with 237 points to add to their 2,530 overall points in the standings.
Martin said the future of the event in Moscow looks bright based on the number of people who attended.
“We had a great turn out,” she said. “We had over 100 racers from the conference and the Vandals had more racers than ever before. I even saw a few students out watching the criterium. Hopefully we can have an even bigger race next year.”
Luis Torres can be reached at [email protected]