Women 7th, Men 9th at NWC Cross Country Championships
BROOKS, Ore. – For the just the third time in Pacific history, the women's cross country team had two runners earn All-Northwest Conference honors in the same meet on Saturday.Â
Stephenie Spencer (Bothell, Wash.) finished ninth and
Serena Wallace (Centralia, Wash. [above left]) finished 13
th as both earned Second Team All-NWC honors and led Pacific to a seventh place finish at the Northwest Conference Cross Country Championships with 155 points. Spencer is just the fourth Pacific woman to earn two or more All-NWC honors as she finished sixth a year ago. The Boxer men finished ninth with 272 points.
Running on the same course as they had two weeks prior at the George Fox Classic meet, seven of the eight Boxer women improved their times from that meet including five by very large margins. Wallace improved 40.9 seconds with a mark of 22:40.6 which is number six on the Pacific all-time 6K list.Â
Jess Knoll (Arlee, Mont. [above right]) improved by 49.4 seconds to 23:01.9 and is just behind Wallace in seventh on the all-time list.Â
Cece Hall (Portland, Ore.) improved by an astounding 114.9 seconds to 26:09.3,
Airel Farley (Glide, Ore.) improved 57.1 seconds to 26:28.3 and
Dani Greene (Henderson, Nev.) improved 47.6 seconds to 25:47.1. Spencer improved 2.1 seconds and
Elaina Gillespie (Nampa, Idaho) improved just under a second. The five scorers for Pacific were Spencer, Wallace, Knoll (20
th), Gillespie (56
th) and Greene (57
th). Personal bests were recorded by Wallace, Knoll, Hall and Farley.
Four of the seven Boxer men also improved their times from the George Fox meet.Â
Luke Davis (Gresham, Ore.) was the top finisher for the first time in his career with a personal best time of 27:56.7, 47.4 seconds faster than two weeks ago.Â
Nick Slenning (Portland, Ore.) improved 18.7 seconds to 28:03.7,
Logan Naegeli (Trout Creek, Mont.) improved 101.9 seconds to 28:05.5 and
Trevis Fong (Honolulu, Hawaii) improved 86.7 seconds. The five scorers for Pacific were Davis (49
th), Slenning (52
nd), Naegeli (53
rd),
Kaleb Bass (Slate Creek, Idaho) [57
th] and
Kyle Eisenbeis (Bothell, Wash.) [61
st].
The teams will race again on Saturday, November 12 at the NCAA West Regional. The meet will be hosted by Willamette University in Bush's Pasture Park in Salem, Ore. The women race first at 10:00 am followed by the men at 11:00 am. The regional serves as the qualifying meet for the NCAA Division III Championships.
