Continued improvments

Heading into the Charles Bowles Invitational at Willamette University on Saturday, the Portland State Vikings cross country team was confident in what it had to bring to the course, but fully aware that it was pitted against a tough field of opponents.

“So far, this is probably one of the best teams we’ve had in the last 10 years,” assistant coach Kevin Jeffers said.

Though they were competing against several nationally ranked teams, the main item of importance was not rankings—it was continued improvement on a season that has already seen new personal records in the first two meets.

As it turned out, the Vikings had nothing to worry about. Three of the men completed the course with times under 25 minutes, 45 seconds, and two of them—juniors John Lawrence and Andrew Salq—finished neck-and-neck in the 31st and 32nd spots respectively.

The women’s squad also put together another solid match. Junior Amelia Holcombe finished 24th in a field of 203 and four other Vikings finished in the top 100.

Most encouraging are the improvements that the Portland State squads continue to heap upon themselves.
Both squads, sans two members of the women’s team and one of the men, posted personal record improvements across the board.

“Looking back, last year our No. 1 guy [finished at] 25:40. This year, we had five guys [near] that, so we’re well ahead of last year’s fitness—men and women,” Jeffers said.

John Lawrence, the first of the Portland squad to finish, enjoyed the competition.

“It’s always good to race against somebody whose team is better than you. It provides good competition, [and] makes you want to beat them that much more. … You’re able to keep progressing, and have that much more confidence,” he said.

“We had a goal in mind. We were really focused, and we were really bearing down for sure,” Lawrence said.
“I got out fast, which tends to happen. I started running up in the pack a bit,” he said. “I was trying to be a penetrator and get up, score our team as many points as possible, so we could move up in the rankings.”
Coach Jeffers is optimistic as well.

“We’re expected to be ninth in conference, I feel that we can do better than that,” he said. “I truly feel that we’re going to make that improvement and get out of that ninth spot and hopefully beat another school or two. The third race is a great indication of where we’re at.”

Both squads are full of new runners and the two coaches, Jeffers and head coach Ronnye Harrison, are new additions this year as well.

Lawrence takes pride in the feeling of accomplishment of being on the team. “Being a Viking is an opportunity to do something that not a lot of people get to do—getting a chance to represent a Division I program,” he said. “You can feel like you did something phenomenal.”

Coach Jeffers takes pride in his team.

“I’m really proud of everyone for stepping up, running as a team and being a team,” he said. “We haven’t had such a team atmosphere at Portland State in a while. When everybody showed up today, it showed that they wanted to help themselves—help their team—and I’m really proud of the way everyone ran out there and competed.”