Women Third, Men Fourth at Mountain West Championships

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Oct 3

Women 7:50am / Men 9:30am

Cross Country

at Joe Piane Notre Dame Invite

Oct 10

Men 9:00 a.m. / Women 9:45 a.m.

Cross Country

at UCCS XC Open

Oct 18

TBA

Cross Country

at Pre-National Invite

Oct 31

TBA

Cross Country

at Mountain West Championships

Nov 14

TBA

Cross Country

vs NCAA Mountain Region Championships

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Colorado State's men's and women's nationally-ranked cross country team came away with top-five finishes at the Mountain West Championships on Friday, contested at the UNM North Golf Course.

In the process, each squad had All-Mountain West results, with Tanner Norman placing fourth in the men's 8K race for first-team honors; Lily Tomasula-Martin eighth in the women's 6K event and Lauren Offerman 14^th for second-team.

Head coach Art Siemers said both squads ran well, but not as well as they could have coming off strong finishes at the Nuttycombe Invitational. He felt both were a bit too amped up and ran flat, which he shouldered the blame for in terms of training them for the meet.

"I just feel like we looked tired, and that's on me," he said. "I did not have them ready to go to run their best today it appears, but we'll rally back and get ready for regionals. It's a tough thing. The conference meet … We still have two more meets to go, so it's the balance between how we train and how we finish. This didn't hurt us. We just ended up finished behind ranked teams in our conference, which is disappointing, because we wanted to have better showings today. I know this team is really tough, and they're going to bounce back."

The top-ranked New Mexico women won the team title with a perfect score of 15, with the first seven finishers Lobos. Tomasula-Martin crossed in 19:57.3 to pace the No. 12 Rams' third-place finish with 75 points, just behind Utah State's 73. The Rams ran in second the majority of the race, but the unranked Aggies took them over in the final stages of the race.

The Lobos' Amelia Mazza-Downie won the individual title in a time of 19:37.3.

Offerman ran second for CSU, placing 14^th in a time of 20:10, followed by Emily Chaston (17^th), Ivy Gonzales (18^th) and Ashlyn Hillyard (23^rd).

Colorado State's men finished fourth as a team, clipped by one point by No. 21 Utah State, 79-80 in the 8K event. The Rams, ranked 19^th nationally entering the race had, one finisher, Tanner Norman, place in the top 10. He was fourth overall in a time of 23:36.0 as he ran in the top five the majority of the race. He sat 10^th at the first checkpoint at 2.4 kilometers, then moved up to third by the 4K mark and remained in the top five the remainder of the race.

The Rams' next four runners are packed close together, led by Brock Dykema in 17^th at 24:03.5. Mason Brown was 20^th, Jacob Brueckman was 21^st and Thomas Chaston 22^nd, finishing within 7 seconds of each other.

No. 11 Air Force won the team title at 27 points, with eight of its runners crossing among the top 13. The individual title went to Boise State's Dario De Caro in 23:26.8, with the No. 23 Broncos taking second (64).

"They fought. All of them did," Siemers said. "Tanner had a really big day today. That's the first time he stepped up at the conference level, and I was really proud of that effort. Lily, Lauren and Emily really ran strong today. On both the men's and women's side, we just had too big of a pack split, and that's really what we've been focusing on all year, to bring that closer."

Siemers said both of this team will have one more big training run early in the week, they they'll start to pull back to create fresh legs for the finish of the season. The first leg is an important one, the NCAA Mountain Regional on Nov. 12 at Timpanogos Golf Course in Provo, Utah. The event can strengthen the resumes of both squads for the NCAA Championships Nov. 20 in Tallahassee, Fla.

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