Pepperdine University
WCC Championships
Waves Cross Country Gears up for WCC Championships
2/22/2021 1:59:00 PM | Cross Country
In a sense, Pepperdine cross country has gone all-in on one race. This will be the only cross country race of the season; the distance group will resume its track schedule on March 6.Â
"Having WCCs in the middle of track season is very odd," Pepperdine head coach Sylvia Mosqueda said. "How much can you get them prepared for it and what can you do for it? It's an awkward way to run a cross country race in the middle of a track season, but you don't change a lot of things. I just stay focused, I really believe in my athletes and we work well together."
But for a program that wasn't sure if the WCC was going to hold a 2020 conference race, the opportunity to compete as a team in the midst of track season will not be taken for granted.
"Going into the season, I wasn't sure if we were going to have any cross country races, so having any race on the schedule feels like a success," Junior distance runner Riley Wright said. "It'll be interesting switching from the 6K to 1,500 and 800-meter races, but I'm not too worried about it. I'm just excited to get out and race."
Pepperdine sophomore Skyler Danley — the Waves' top returner on the women's cross country team — shares a similar optimistic outlook.
"Honestly, I think it's going to be fun to mix things up," Danley said. "Sometimes it's hard mentally when you have 10 track races in a row, so throwing in a cross country race can be a nice mental break to be competing as a team, versus competing as individuals."
The men's team aims for its first finish in the top half of conference since placing fourth in 2002. Last season, however, Pepperdine finished one point behind sixth-place LMU and eight points behind fifth-place San Francisco. And by returning four of its top seven finishers from last season, the men's team likes its chances to improve on Wednesday.
"We've had our eyes on this race ever since we learned this race would more than likely happen," Karl Winter, last year's top Pepperdine finisher at WCCs, said. "I'm hoping we will be prepared even though this will be our first cross country race in a long time."
Winter (Stockton, Calif./Saint Mary's HS) will be joined by fellow junior Kyle McCabe (Westminster, Colo./Holy Family HS), plus seniors Preston Gromer (Casper, Wyo./Kelly Walsh HS) and Justin Touhey (Stony Point, N.Y./Don Bosco Preparatory HS) — all of whom have top-10 8K times in Pepperdine program history.
For Touhey, the conference race will be bittersweet. Touhey has finished in Pepperdine's top-seven of every race he has competed in throughout his collegiate career.
"I want to be as low of a scorer as possible," Touhey said. "It's my last cross country race at Pepperdine, so it's going to be a little bittersweet that the season has gone this way, but I'm happy to have the opportunity to run one last race in cross country."
The big question mark will be the fifth scorer, which will more than likely come down to one of the freshmen Pepperdine is taking to the race. Yet according to the upperclassmen, getting the race experience will help the freshmen in the future — especially if they want to help the Waves rise in the conference standings.
"This could be the closest thing to a normal freshman year that our freshman will experience," McCabe said. "Getting to travel to a meet out-of-state, stay in a hotel room and go through that pre-race process is definitely a learning experience. I hope WCCs will introduce them to how college running really is. It's not just you training with your team and racing against them in time trials on your home track every few weeks.
"It'll help them get accustomed to real college competition and set them up for success for years to come."
Meanwhile on the women's side, the team returns four of its top five finishers from the 2019 WCC race, including Danley (Easton, Pa./Easton Area HS), Wright (Chandler, Ariz./Corona del Sol HS), Key Pearson (Bainbridge Island, Wash./Vistamar School) and Olivia Miller (Tallahassee, Fla./Lawton Chiles HS).
Like their male counterparts, the returners on the women's team have tried to instill confidence in the freshmen running their first-ever collegiate cross country races on the conference's biggest stage. Wright said she has been reminding the newcomers all they have endured over the past year in order to help prepare them for the challenges of a unique season.
"Something that I've told the freshman girls is that they've gone through a lot in their freshman year by not having the normal college experience and by not having that collegiate community," Wright said. "But they've been able to find that community with each other and with us. It's been exciting to see them persevere through it all."
On Wednesday, the women's 6K will start at 10 a.m., then the men's 8K will start at 11 a.m. Both races will not be broadcasted this season, but live results can be found here.
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Players Mentioned
