Waves Run at UC Riverside on Saturday Morning
10/14/2015 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
MALIBU, Calif. -- The Pepperdine cross country teams has one last meet before their championship season gets underway. The Waves will race at the Highlander Invitational, hosted by UC Riverside, this Saturday morning.
The men's 6K will start at 8 a.m. at the UCR Agricultural Operations Course, followed by the women's 5K at 8:30 a.m.
After Saturday, it's on to the West Coast Conference Championships (Oct. 31 in Spokane, Wash.) and the NCAA West Regional Championships (Nov. 13 in Seattle, Wash.) for the Waves.
"We've been working hard since we got here in mid-August," Pepperdine Coach Robert Radnoti said. "The kids all know their paces and they've been pushing really hard. We've pretty much doubled our workout efforts and everyone's staying strong. We've still got a few injuries but hopefully we'll get everyone healthy by the end of the season and be able to run really well at the WCCs."
The men's team has been led by freshman Nick Heath (Scotts Valley, Calif./Scotts Valley HS) at all three races thus far, and he's coming off a very impressive fourth-place finish at the Capital Cross Challenge on October 3. His 8K time of 24:58.0 was the first time a Pepperdine runner has broken 25 minutes in at least two decades. The next three runners have consistently been sophomore Nick Blanchard (Portland, Conn./Portland HS), junior Ben Fox (Colorado Springs, Colo./Cheyenne Mountain HS) and sophomore Kevin Maeda (Highland, Calif./Citrus Valley) in some order.
As has been the case for the past 2 1/2 seasons, senior Katie Engel (Honeoye Falls, N.Y./Honeoye Falls-Lima HS) has led the women's team. She's been the top Pepperdine finisher at all three races and in 12 of the last 16 meets dating back to 2013. Junior Elle Lemco (San Jose, Calif./Prospect HS) has been the #2 runner at the two races that she's run and junior Lindsay Sheaffer (Portland, Ore./Jesuit HS) has been the #3 finisher all three times.
