Wildcat men nearly victorous at Santa Clara Invitational Lamar takes men's crown while Lady Cats fourth behind several DI teams

By Gary Towne, Chico State head coach Saturday October 16, 2010

The Men’s Invite Pack in which you can see 8 uniformed ‘Cats and several red shirts, if you look hard. Issac Chavez was just a few strides ahead of the group and is not pictured.

Santa Clara, California -- The Chico State Wildcats enjoyed a very fine final outing before the upcoming championship season begins, while competing at the Santa Clara Bronco Invite this Saturday. The ‘Cats top-10 per gender competed in the Invitational races, while the “B” squads competed in separate “Open” races. Thankfully the ‘Cats had full squads in all four races, and each had very positive results. The women’s open group enjoyed the most success of the day, so we’ll start with their dominant performance. I’ll try to use a scaled down write up here in hopes that most of you won’t be bored by too many words-given the 4 race weekend. The courses: First, a quick description of the courses. As has been the theme of our ’10 season, both courses (5k and 8k) were pancake flat with the exception of a small rolling stretch of path that was covered only once per race. Both courses repeated 1 mile loops for the most part, with different variations of such. Footing was mostly a packed sand/gravel mix and the trail was fairly narrow throughout. Both layouts were Extremely fast, and would produce some solid Pr’s for many of the participants. Women’s Open run: The Chico women did a great job of highlighting the

depth of quality runners on our roster these days. While 10 would run in the Invite race after them, the #11-18 runners took on A squads from San Jose State, SF State, Sonoma, Cal State East Bay, UC Santa Cruz and B squads from Sac State, Nevada, Santa Clara, and more, and absolutely demolished the field. Leading the way for the ‘Cats throughout this one was Sara Mikesell, who a year ago was the very final person on the ‘Cats roster in every race and workout while redshirting as a frosh. A year later Sara battled with Kenyan Agnes Silvestro of Holy Names for almost the entire 5k as the pair ran in 2nd and 3rd overall. In the final half mile Mikesell powered past the tiring Silvestro, only to be caught by teammates Jessica Varela (currently a red shirting frosh) and Anna Eicholtz. In the final stretch Varela pulled away for second, while XC rookie Anna Eicholtz (former 400/800 runner) finished strong for 3rd. Mikesell would take the 4th spot, while Silvestro came home 5th overall. Two more ‘Cat frosh would take 6th and 7th with Hayley Swanson and Natalie Galvan hitting the tape in 18:40 and 18:46 PR’s respectively. Brooke Bergesen would stop the scoring for the ‘Cats with her 10th place 18:49 run. Counting red shirting Varela in the mix, the ‘Cats had placed 6 in the Top-10 overall in the open race, while those in uniform combined for a near perfect 19 point final tally. To help put this win into perspective, Northwest Nazarene is ranked #8 in the West Region for DII. Although they ran without their #1 runner (she would run in the Invite section) the ‘Cats easily outdistanced this regionally ranked team. I have little doubt that IF our second squad could somehow run in the regional meet, that we’d have two full women’s teams headed to the NCAA meet this December (note: 6 women’s teams will go to NCAA’s from the West region this fall).

Sarah Mikesell (Fr) battling Holy Names top gal, while teammates Jessica Varela (red shirting) follows closely. You can also see Anna Eicholtz and Hayley Swanson just behind.

Natalie Galvan has become a great story in the making.. as the RS Frosh chopped another bundle of seconds off her PR this week!

Women’s Invitational 5K: Comparatively speaking, the Women’s Invite race wasn’t quite as glowing for the ‘Cats squad. Running without two time All American Alia Gray (resting due to leg soreness) the Wildcat women collectively failed to really put themselves among the lead group from the gun, and on a course as narrow as what we had in front of us on Saturday, teams and individuals ran away from us early. The Chico women moved well in the final 2/3 of the race and probably went from being around 10th as a team at the mile (if you were to score the race at that point), to 4th by the finish. The one exception was Kara Lubieniecki, despite battling a tough cold, got herself out well and battled among the top 15-20 the entire race, before throwing down her trademark final 300m kick that put 4-5 seconds on those who were running with her. Kara would end up 9th overall in the DI stacked field. Shannon McVannel finished next for the ‘Cats hitting the tape some 25 seconds behind Lubieniecki. Colleen Joyce enjoyed an XC 5k PR with her 17:52 effort, which was good for 42nd place overall. Teammate Shannon Rich followed closely with a 17:59 (47th overall) and Katie Spencer closed out the ‘Cats scoring with a 54th place finish. Despite not executing quite as well as we’d hoped, the Chico women still claimed some quality victims after the final scores had been tallied. UC Davis, who’d beaten the ‘Cats at Stanford, finished 7 points in arrears. The Wildcat women also beat Fresno State, Santa Clara, UNLV, Lamar, Nevada, New Mexico and a host of other DI’s. All in all, not a bad day for the Lady ‘Cats, but still leaving some things to work on as they eye the championship races ahead.

Jonah Weeks (193) pictured at mid race, with teammate Michelle S. Johnson (200) just behind to her right.

Joey Kochlacs (Jr) leading teammates Adrian Sherrod, Isaac Chavez and Anthony Costales from one group to the next, once the racing had begun.

Men’s Invitational 8K: The Chico State men’s team took another step forward on Saturday placing second overall in the team race behind DI Lamar University out of Houston, TX. Although the men were disappointed in not winning the team title, they were able to defeat DI squads from UC Davis, Long Beach, Fresno State, Boise State, Sac State, USF, Santa Clara, among others. It should also be noted that Lamar’s Top-6 runners on Saturday were International students with pretty impressive credentials. The Chico men’s chances at the team title may have been hampered by their coach's restrictive race plan, that required the top 7-8 running the initial 4-5k as a group, before taking off after the competition. The men performed this task admirably, running the initial 4k as a group of 8-9 before an anxious Brent Handa sped away to join the lead pack ahead. Adrian Sherrod, Isaac Chavez and Anthony Costales did what they’ve done all season, running solid late miles while battling among the lead packs. New to the front running fold were Joey Kochlacs and Manny Mejia. Mejia, who’s a 2 time returning All West Region runner, has struggled to find his form thus far this season. However on this day he put himself back into the picture, posting a 24:38 final time, while finishing 28th overall. Meanwhile Joey Kochlacs, who has battled some injury issues this fall, showed the form that took him to a 30:28 10K PR on the track last spring by finishing as the ‘Cats #4 (24:24 finish time). Anthony Costales rounded the ‘Cats scoring five with a nice 24:35 run. Also enjoying a very nice outing was Alfonso Cisneros the Red Shirt frosh out of McFarland HS. Cisneros was the final athlete taken onto the roster a year ago, and Saturday the scrappy 18 year old ran to a 24:53 personal best!

Men’s Open 8k: The Chico men’s B squad had little room for error in the men’s open 8K race. Only 5 runners toed the line for the Cats, and each would need to run solid efforts if this group had a shot any shot at winning the Open race title. The first half of the race couldn’t have gone any better as Donald Treusdell, Zack Zadrozna, Clinton Hayes, and Julio Jimenez all ran among the Top-10 overall. Unfortunately somewhere in the 3rd mile Hayes pulled up with a hamstring issue. Thankfully a teammate saw Hayes walking on the side of the course and reminded him that the team needed a fifth finisher. Hayes rallied to jog in the final 2 miles although his stoppage cost him over 40 places. The Hayes incident was unfortunate because his teammates ahead were running a superb race. Zack Zadrozna ate up ground on the lead pack and pulled teammate Donald Truesdell away from any would be pursuers as the pair ran in 2nd and 3rd overall with a mile to go. Jimenez was running in 5th with a mile to go, with only USF’s Adam Smith standing between himself and his teammates ahead. Julio ran a tough final mile and would hit the tape 4th overall, behind Zadrozna and Truesdell.

Zack Zadrozna (Fr) enjoying his best day in a Wildcat uniform to date finishing strong with a 25:33 PR.

The 1,2,3 team score sweep (Winner was Unnat. JK Withers-Former U of O runner) put the guys in a great position for the possible win. Rogan Meza struggled over the final kilometers but held on for a respectable 31st place finish, and Hayes would finally cross the line 76th overall. As the scores were tallied the Wildcat second group had placed a respectable 2nd overall, tying with Nor Cal JC power-American River College. Next up for the Wildcats is Conference Championship, November 6th hosted by Cal Poly Pomona. Those not making conference teams will race in Davis at the Doc Adams Invitational.