Cross country concludes championship in Cheney

The Portland State cross country teams wrapped up competition Saturday at the Big Sky Conference Championship in Cheney, Wash. The men and women finished seventh and eight, respectively.

At the event hosted by Eastern Washington, the men’s team, paced by senior Andrew Salg, finished with 166 points. The women’s team, led by sophomore Julie Pedersen, finished with 233 points.

With a time of 23 minutes, 18.24 seconds, Salg was the 22nd finisher out of a field of 64 in the 8-kilometer men’s race. The finish marks an improvement from Salg’s time in last year’s championship, where he led all Portland State runners with a 36th-place time of 27:40:31.

Senior John Lawrence followed Salg with a 29th-place finish and a time of 23:35.88.

Pedersen ran a time of 16:41.77 to place 18th in a field of 68 runners in the women’s 5k. This was much improved from a year ago, when Pedersen placed 49th out of 67 runners with a time of 22:10.20.

Sophomore Amber Rozcicha placed second out of the Portland State women with a time of 17:16.47, a marked improvement over last year’s championship time of 21:42.1.  

The Northern Arizona men ran away from the competition, finishing first for the fourth straight year with 27 points. All seven runners on the Lumberjack men’s team finished in the top 15. Northern Arizona was followed by Montana State (56 points) and Weber State (99 points).  

Montana won the women’s title for the first time in 26 years with a score of 49 while Weber State (63 points) and Idaho State (68 points) placed second and third, respectively. The highest the Vikings’ have ever placed in the cross country championship was sixth place in 2004 at Montana State.  

Next up for the Vikings is the University of Oregon-hosted NCAA West Regional on Nov. 13 in Eugene. ?