Colorado State University Athletics
Friday, November 1
Logan, Utah
10 AM MT
Colorado State
vs
Mountain West Championships
Photo by: Justin Tafoya
Rams Save Best Races for Mountain West Championships
11/1/2019 1:08:00 PM | Cross Country
CSU Men Take Second, Women Fourth
LOGAN, Utah. – Colorado State bested its projected finishes at the Mountain West Cross Country Championships Friday morning as the men placed second and the women finished fourth at the Steve and Dona Reeder Cross Country Course.
Both Ram teams were pinned to place fifth in the MW pre-championship poll earlier this week. The men tallied 74 points, trailing first place and host Utah State by 32, and finishing ahead of Wyoming by one and nationally-ranked No. 18 Boise State by 14. The women scored 114 points right behind all three of the nationally-ranked teams of No. 11 New Mexico, No. 14 Air Force and No. 13 Boise State.
Individually, two Rams earned All-Mountain West first-team honors, finishing in the top seven of their respective races. Redshirt-senior Forrest Barton, of Castle Rock, Colo., finished the 8,000-meter race in second place with a time of 23:22.1. In the next hour, redshirt-sophomore Lily Tomasula-Martin crossed in the women's race in sixth overall with a time of 20:17.6. Both of the awards marked the first for each in their careers.
In the men's race after Barton, the four Rams' scorers crossed in a pack. First, Brock Dykema got 15th place, but then Satchel Caldwell, Michael Mooney, and Maximilliano Martinez finished back-to-back-to-back to close out the top 20.
Similarly, Devon Peterson and Sarah Carter in the women's race took 20th and 21st before the Rams concluded scoring with Lauren Offerman and Ashlyn Hillyard in 34th and 39th, respectively.
Head Coach Art Siemers
On the men's team…
"It has been a challenging year with all the graduating student-athletes that we had, but our training has been great and I knew if the guys would find their identity going into the championship season then we'd be good and that is what happened today. I'm really proud of this team for believing in the training and believing in changing the course of the season. We talked as a team about running in a pack as much as we can and that's exactly what we did as our pack split between our first scorer and our fifth scorer was about 27 seconds. That is what we've been looking for all year – a front runner that can be a potential all-american if he [Barton] keeps running like this but also the fifth man closes the gap on him. That is how we went from being mostly in the back of some of these big meets to now in the front of one of the best conference championships in the country. We are in a good place. We finally got that spark of confidence that we needed so I'm excited to see what we do in the next two weeks."
On the women's team…
"The field this season is tough on the women's side as the first-second-third finishers are all nationally-ranked and probably should be top-10, therefore finishing right behind them was impressive. We knew also we'd be in a big battle with Utah State. They beat us earlier in the season by a sizeable margin, so we were focused on them and the girls did it. For Lily [Tomasula-Martin] to finish sixth in this conference is phenomenal. I'm super proud of how she raced today. She raced smart, gutted it out with some all-americans, and never lost focus. We had girls step up and take a new role on the team. Devon Peterson did that today with her 20th-place finish. She ran by far her best race of the season. Then Lauren Offerman just had a phenomenal race as well. I'm excited to see what this team can do at the regional championships. It is fun to get to the championship season and your teams run their best of the year. We pride ourselves on that here at Colorado State and I think we executed that today."
Results
MEN 8K – Second Place
2nd – Forrest Barton 23:22.1
15th – Brock Dykema 23:40.9
18th – Satchel Caldwell 23:44.2
19th – Michael Mooney 23:46.7
20th – Maximilliano Martinez 23:49.3
30th – Jacob Brueckman 24:04.7
36th – Matt Begeman 24:15.9
WOMEN 6K – Fourth Place
6th – Lily Tomasula-Martin 20:17.6
20th – Devon Peterson 21:01
21st - Sarah Carter 21:04.2
34th – Lauren Offerman 21:23.5
39th – Ashlyn Hillyard 21:31.5
44th – Emma Atwell 21:50.3
46th – Claudia Burgess 21:53.9
57th – Jenna Diers 22:24.5
63rd – Hailey Leader 22:42.4
Next
The Rams are back in action on Nov. 15 in the NCAA Mountain Region, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
For More on Colorado State Track & Field and Cross Country follow: Twitter – CSUTrackFieldXC | Instagram – csutrackfieldXC | Facebook – Colorado State Track & Field/Cross Country
Both Ram teams were pinned to place fifth in the MW pre-championship poll earlier this week. The men tallied 74 points, trailing first place and host Utah State by 32, and finishing ahead of Wyoming by one and nationally-ranked No. 18 Boise State by 14. The women scored 114 points right behind all three of the nationally-ranked teams of No. 11 New Mexico, No. 14 Air Force and No. 13 Boise State.
Individually, two Rams earned All-Mountain West first-team honors, finishing in the top seven of their respective races. Redshirt-senior Forrest Barton, of Castle Rock, Colo., finished the 8,000-meter race in second place with a time of 23:22.1. In the next hour, redshirt-sophomore Lily Tomasula-Martin crossed in the women's race in sixth overall with a time of 20:17.6. Both of the awards marked the first for each in their careers.
In the men's race after Barton, the four Rams' scorers crossed in a pack. First, Brock Dykema got 15th place, but then Satchel Caldwell, Michael Mooney, and Maximilliano Martinez finished back-to-back-to-back to close out the top 20.
Similarly, Devon Peterson and Sarah Carter in the women's race took 20th and 21st before the Rams concluded scoring with Lauren Offerman and Ashlyn Hillyard in 34th and 39th, respectively.
Head Coach Art Siemers
On the men's team…
"It has been a challenging year with all the graduating student-athletes that we had, but our training has been great and I knew if the guys would find their identity going into the championship season then we'd be good and that is what happened today. I'm really proud of this team for believing in the training and believing in changing the course of the season. We talked as a team about running in a pack as much as we can and that's exactly what we did as our pack split between our first scorer and our fifth scorer was about 27 seconds. That is what we've been looking for all year – a front runner that can be a potential all-american if he [Barton] keeps running like this but also the fifth man closes the gap on him. That is how we went from being mostly in the back of some of these big meets to now in the front of one of the best conference championships in the country. We are in a good place. We finally got that spark of confidence that we needed so I'm excited to see what we do in the next two weeks."
On the women's team…
"The field this season is tough on the women's side as the first-second-third finishers are all nationally-ranked and probably should be top-10, therefore finishing right behind them was impressive. We knew also we'd be in a big battle with Utah State. They beat us earlier in the season by a sizeable margin, so we were focused on them and the girls did it. For Lily [Tomasula-Martin] to finish sixth in this conference is phenomenal. I'm super proud of how she raced today. She raced smart, gutted it out with some all-americans, and never lost focus. We had girls step up and take a new role on the team. Devon Peterson did that today with her 20th-place finish. She ran by far her best race of the season. Then Lauren Offerman just had a phenomenal race as well. I'm excited to see what this team can do at the regional championships. It is fun to get to the championship season and your teams run their best of the year. We pride ourselves on that here at Colorado State and I think we executed that today."
Results
MEN 8K – Second Place
2nd – Forrest Barton 23:22.1
15th – Brock Dykema 23:40.9
18th – Satchel Caldwell 23:44.2
19th – Michael Mooney 23:46.7
20th – Maximilliano Martinez 23:49.3
30th – Jacob Brueckman 24:04.7
36th – Matt Begeman 24:15.9
WOMEN 6K – Fourth Place
6th – Lily Tomasula-Martin 20:17.6
20th – Devon Peterson 21:01
21st - Sarah Carter 21:04.2
34th – Lauren Offerman 21:23.5
39th – Ashlyn Hillyard 21:31.5
44th – Emma Atwell 21:50.3
46th – Claudia Burgess 21:53.9
57th – Jenna Diers 22:24.5
63rd – Hailey Leader 22:42.4
Next
The Rams are back in action on Nov. 15 in the NCAA Mountain Region, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
For More on Colorado State Track & Field and Cross Country follow: Twitter – CSUTrackFieldXC | Instagram – csutrackfieldXC | Facebook – Colorado State Track & Field/Cross Country
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