This weekend the Whitworth men’s and women’s cross country teams raced in The Lewis and Clark Invitational in Estacada, Oregon. The women placed second out of twelve teams, and first out of the teams that were present from the Northwest conference.  Senior Kayla Leland led the way for the women’s team, coming in second place overall in 21:32.3 for the 6k race. The men battled for fifth place out of eleven teams, and third out of the teams present from the Northwest conference with senior Daniel Harper leading the way on the men’s side completing the 8k in sixteenth place with a time of 25:54.7.

Senior Thais Pedro-Trujillo was second to cross the line for the Pirates coming in at 22:31.2, shortly behind were senior Bailey Scott and freshman Krystal Roberts at 22:39 and 22:51 respectively. Junior Marissa Mount rounded out the scoring with a 23:00.8. Senior Sara Dawes, freshman Hailey Cleavenger, sophomore Emily Donnel, and senior Maddy Cook also competed in the race.

On the men’s side senior Grant Bingham crossed the line shortly after Harper in 26:08.8,  sophomores Matthew Creagan and Gabriel Meek had finishing times of 26:42 and 26:54 with freshman Jacob Clark rounding out the scoring in 27:10. Freshmen Joel Mott and Drew Cairns also had strong races as well as sophomore Christian Carsh.

“The team did extremely well and is excited to see what the remaining season has in store,”Roberts said. The Pirates have two weeks until the conference meet, and in the meantime “are going to support one another during practices and be mentally and physically prepared for conference and the remaining races after,”.

You can see both cross country teams race next in Walla Walla on Oct 28 at the Veterans Memorial Golf Course starting at 11 a.m. This is the conference meet where all teams from the Northwest Conference get the chance to come together and compete for the conference title.