Complete women's results
Complete mens' results
YAKIMA – Natty Plunkett said she had no adrenaline rush at the beginning of Saturday's Great Northwest Athletic Conference cross country meet.
But she was feeling plenty at the end – and that's when it counted.
The Seattle Pacific junior gradually worked her way up through the pack and came through with a ninth-place finish in the 6-kilometer women's race at Apple Ridge Run. Plunkett logged a time of 22 minutes, 44 seconds. That was four seconds faster than last year, when she took 11th place.
The performance by Plunkett (Bellevue, Wash./Newport HS) earned her a spot in the NCAA Division II West Regional meet, set for Saturday, Nov. 20, at East Lake Padden Park in Bellingham.
“At the starting line, I felt nothing at all. But once the race started, I was fine,” said Plunkett, whose top-10 finish earned her a spot on the All-GNAC team for the second time in her career. (She also made it as a freshman in 2007, when she also was Freshman of the Year.) “It was great to work with the other girls. I was actually really happy race – it was better than I expected.
“I hope that will give me some confidence going into regionals.”
But Plunkett will be the lone Falcon on the regional starting line. Both SPU teams fell short of top-five finish on Saturday that would have qualified them for the regional meet.
The women wound up seventh with 160 points in a meet that was on by Alaska Anchorage.
The men, led by senior Jacob Wahlenmaier in 32nd place, put together one of their best meets of the season, but placed sixth with 180 points, just five points behind fifth-place Saint Martin's. Alaska Anchorage also won the men's meet, totaling 41 points.
I'm very disappointed on the women's side,” interim head coach Letiwe Patton said. “I'm not sure what went wrong, but everything went wrong. We should have done much better than this.”
Freshman McKayla Fricker (Canby, Ore.) was SPU's No. 2 runner on Saturday, placing 29th overall in 23:57. Freshman Alli Cutting (Sequim, Wash./Sequim HS) was 35th in 24:15, and sophomore Krysta Carrick (Tokyo, Japan) placed 45th in 24:33. But from there, it was more than a minute back to the rest of the SPU pack.
“There wasn't much depth from third place back (for SPU),” Patton said.
Plunkett, who missed a good chunk of the season with a stress fracture, was part of a group packed in around 20th place at the mile-mark on the Apple Ridge layout. But by the halfway point, she was up to 15th. At 4 kilometers, she was in 11th, then picked off two more runners on the last loop.
“I remember last year I kind of gave up mentally at the finish,” Plunkett said. “This year, I didn't. After the second mile, nobody passed me. I held my ground, and I was pretty happy with that.”
The SPU men, as they have done all season, put together some excellent pack running. Wahlenmaier (Everett, Wash./Cascade HS) led the Falcons' charge with his time of 26:45 for 8 kilometers.
Then, starting with junior Nate Sleight (Bellevue, Wash./Bellevue Christian HS), the next four Falcon scorers were bunched with 25 seconds and six places of each other: Sleight in 39th (26:58), sophomore A.J. Baker (Au Gres, Mich.) in 40th (27:02), sophomore Andrew Van Ness (Bellevue, Wash./Bellevue Christian HS) in 42nd (27:17), and freshman Evan Bradford (Santa Barbara, Calif.) in 44th (27:23).
In fact SPU's sixth man (junior Daniel Hamilton) finished five places and 18 seconds in front of the No. 3 scorer from Saint Martin's. But the first two Saints finished went 9-10 in the overall order, giving them the boost they needed for fifth place.
“I feel like the guys had their best race,” Patton said.
Individually, Western Washington's Sarah Porter won the women's title in 21 minutes, 4 seconds – just one second shy of the course record set last fall by now-graduated Seattle Pacific star Jessica Pixler. Marco Cheseto of Alaska Anchorage took the men's crown for the third straight year, winning this one in 23:55.
NCAA WOMEN'S CROSS COUNTRY
GNAC Championships
Saturday, November 6, 2010
6 kilometers at Apple Ridge Run/Yakima, Wash.
Team scores – 1, Alaska Anchorage 27; 2, Western Washington 69; 3, Western Oregon 108; 4, Alaska Fairbanks 129; 5, Montana State Billings 137; 6, Northwest Nazarene 146; 7, Seattle Pacific 160; 8, Saint Martin's 189; 9, Central Washington 233.
Top 5 – 1, Sarah Porter 21:04; 2, Miriam Kipng'eno 21:09; 3, Ruth Keino 21:26; 4, Jaclyn Puga (NNU) 22:06; 5, Shoshana Keegan 22:24. SPU placers – 9, Natty Plunkett 22:44; 29, McKayla Fricker 23:57; 35, Alli Cutting 24:15; 45, Krysta Carrick 24:33; 59, Megan Knape 25:37; 60, Josie Becker 25:38; 65, Laura Moser 25:48; 72, Kelsey Brown 26:34; 74, Kayla Wilkins 27:06; 78, Leah Swanson 27:59.
NCAA MEN'S CROSS COUNTRY
GNAC Championships
Saturday, November 6, 2010
8 kilometers at Apple Ridge Run/Yakima, Wash.
Team scores – 1, Alaska Anchorage 41; 2, Western Washington 56; 3, Western Oregon 67; 4, Northwest Nazarene 90; 5, Saint Martin's 175; 6, Seattle Pacific 180; 7, Alaska Fairbanks 184; 8, Montana State Billings 212; 9, Central Washington 230.
Top 5 – 1, Marko Cheseto (UAA) 23:56; 2, Micah Chelimo (UAA) 24:27; 3, Chris Reed (WOU) 24:29; 4, Barak Watson (NNU) 24:30; 5, Jordan Welling (WWU) 24:34. SPU placers – 32, Jacob Wahlenmaker 26:46; 39, Nate Sleight 26:59; 40, AJ Baker 27:03; 42, Andrew Van Ness 27:18; 44, Evan Bradford 27:24; 50, Daniel Hamilton 27:36; 56, Gavin Brand 28:03; 64, Will Harrison 28:31; 65, Nate Seely 28:35; 75, Jordan Lance 30:56.
