Seven Trojans PR at NWAC Championships

University Place, WA - Seven Trojans set personal records at the 2024 NWAC Championships on Saturday, November 9th at Chambers Creek Regional Park in University Place, WA.  The weather was an upgrade from the 2023 Championships, where torrential rains leading up to and during the event made for a sloppy course.  This year the course was in great shape with little rain throughout the week, and only a light rain that did not start until the end of the men's race. In total 146 competitors represented 13 NWAC institutions in the 54th NWAC Cross Country Championships.  

The women's 5k was the first race of the day, with the favorites to win being Mia Beightol from Clark College and Mary Nakamura Spokane who held the top NWAC 5k times entering the race.  Beightol set the pace for the duration of the race, and ultimately won with a time of 18:18.4, and winning by 14 seconds.  But Spokane finished 2, 3, 4, and placed all five scoring runners inside the top 10 to win the team championship by 43 points over Clark College.  The first Trojan to finish was Teagan Pentz who finished 18th overall with a time of 20:52.10 and PR'd by 20 seconds.  In fact, all five runners for EvCC set 5k personal bests.  Taya Kilgore (29th) by 3.3 seconds, Ariel Rodriguez-Garcia (42nd) by 13 seconds, Amelia Koon (43rd) by 5 seconds, and Maria Isaza-Marin (57th) who had the largest team PR by 40 seconds. As a team the women finished in 7th place of 14 participating schools.

The men's 8k followed, and remained relatively dry until the last half of the race.  Gilbert Langat of Spokane was the heavy favorite after a solid season of races.  He led throughout, and finished 35 seconds ahead of the second place finisher, who was Jackson Rye of Green River.  The Spokane men were not as dominate as the women, but still did enough to get the job done, winning with 42 points, 15 ahead of second place Green River.  Trojan freshman Anthony Long was the first EvCC runner to finish placing 16th overall and finishing with a time of 27:15.0.  Andrew Schmitz was next to finish at 31st overall who had a big time improvement from two weeks ago at the Northwest Region Championship meet.  He edged out Nicolas Nava Roman of Green River who finished 3rd overall at the Region Championship, as well as another runner from Green River and one from Edmonds.  Schmitz was also one of two Trojans to get an 8k PR at the Championships, a new record by 33 secons.  Charlie Roberts took 44th, followed by Jacob Doughty at 61st (PR'd by 10 seconds), and Isaiah Buckley (62nd).  The men finished 7th of 11 participating schools which matched their 2023 finish.

Championship Photos

• Women
• Men

Several Trojans received post season honors, including head coach Rachel Cundy who was named the Northwest Region women's coach of the year:

First Team All Region

• Anthony Long
• Teagan Pentz
• Taya Kilgore

Second Team All Region

• Charlie Roberts
• Andrew Schmitz
• Ariel Rodriguez-Garcia
• Amelia Koon
• Maria Isaza Marin