MALIBU, California – The Pepperdine men's and women's cross country teams will head to the Pacific Northwest to compete in the West Coast Conference Championships on Friday morning. The Waves will have nine runners on both sides compete in Portland.
 
MEET DETAILS
 
The race will take place at Fernhill Park in Portland, Ore., on Friday and Portland will be serving as the host of the WCC Championships meet. The women's 6K will start at 10 a.m., followed by the men's 8K at 11 a.m. Both races will be live streamed on the WCC Network.
 
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Head coach Lauren Floris said: "Our teams are ready to put it all out there on Friday. The weather looks rainy so we are preparing for tough conditions and we know that our athletes are up for the challenge."
 
MEN'S TEAM
 
Graduate student Will Bullock (Marietta, Ga./Kennesaw Mountain HS/Eastern Illinois, junior Johnathan Flint (Flower Mound, Texas/Flower Mound HS), sophomore Elias Spence (Shippensburg, Pa./Shippensburg Area HS) and freshman Joshua Bergers (Cohasset, Mass./IMG Academy) were the top four runners for the Waves this season. All four Waves posted their season-best showing at the Bronco Invitational, including Bullock, Bergers and Spence marking their names on the Pepperdine all-time performance list.
 
Bullock beat his personal record that he posted at Eastern Illinois, and sits tied at the eighth spot on the all-time list in a time of 24:43.3. In just his second 8K, Bergers collected a time of 25:11.6, which ranks him 13th on the all-time list. Spence moved himself up on the Pepperdine all-time list from 18th to 14th with a time of 25:11.7, which was a new personal record as well. Junior Nate Lannen (Southlake, Texas/Carroll HS) was also one of the top runners for Pepperdine this season, tying his personal record at the Bronco Invitational.
 
Last season at the WCC Championships, the men's team placed sixth and were led by alum Kyle McCabe. The men had a strong finish and passed PCH Cup rival Loyola Marymount at the end of the race to earn a PCH Cup point. In 2020, the only meet was the WCC Championships, in which McCabe led the men's team to a fifth-place finish, which was the best placing since 2008. The team's best-ever finish was third in 1997.
 
WOMEN'S TEAM
 
Sophomores Megan LaCamera (Burbank, Calif./Burbank HS) and Eden Mittelsdorf (Nashville, Tenn./Brentwood HS), senior Olivia Miller (Tallahassee, Fla./Lawton Chiles HS) and junior Elle Shrader (Boerne, Texas/Boerne-Samuel V. Champion HS) were the top runners for the Waves' women this season. LaCamera led three out of the four races and posted season and personal bests in both the 5K and 6K. LaCamera collected her new personal-best 5K time at the Mark Covert Classic in a time of 19:43.6 and kept the momentum going and notched her new 6K time in the UC Riverside Invitational in a time of 22:18.0, which moved her up on the Pepperdine all-time list from 17th to 14th. Miller also ran a season and personal best at the Bronco Invitational in a time of 22:11.5 which moved her on the all-time list from 20th to 12th.
 
Shrader also ran both season and personal bests at the Mark Covert Classic and the Bronco Invitational. She was the #3 runner at both meets, collecting a 5K time of 20:28.6 in Brea and a new 6K time of 23:04.1 in Sunnyvale.
 
At the 2021 WCC Championships, LaCamera led the Waves' women in a time of 23:17.8. The women's team placed 10th. The women improved in every meet this season, including a first-place team finish in the Waves Invitational for the first time in the program's history. The Waves hosted the Waves Invitational for the first time since 2017. The team's best-ever finish at the WCC Championships was second in 1988, 1993 and 1999.
 
UP NEXT
 
Pepperdine will head back to the Pacific Northwest to compete in the NCAA West Regional on November 11 in Seattle, Wash.