MALIBU, Calif.  – The Pepperdine men's and women's cross country teams are gearing up for the start of the 2023 season and will open up at PCH Cup rival Loyola Marymount's South Bay Twilight on Friday evening.
 
MEET DETAILS
 
The race will be held at Charles H. Wilson Park in Torrance, Calif., with the women's 6K beginning at 7:45 p.m. followed by the men's 8K at 8:55 p.m.
 
ROSTER NOTES
 
The Pepperdine men's cross country team is coming off a seventh-place finish at the 2022 West Coast Conference Championships. Last season at the WCC Championships, graduate student Will Bullock (Marietta, Ga./Kennesaw Mountain HS/Eastern Illinois) collected the program's fastest WCC Championship time, crossing the line at 24:03.3.
 
The Pepperdine women's cross country team is coming off its best finish at the WCC Championships since 2014, having placed ninth and a first-place finish at the Waves Invitational.
 
In the WCC preseason cross country poll, the men are picked eighth, while the women are picked seventh.
 
This year's 18-runner men's team has 14 returners including all nine competitors from last year's WCC Championships. There is one graduate student, five seniors, two juniors, six sophomores and four freshmen on the squad.
 
Of the 21 women on the roster, 10 are returners, including five that competed at the WCC Championships. This year's group consists of one senior, four juniors, five sophomores and 11 freshmen.
 
MEN'S TEAM
 
Bullock, senior Johnathan Flint (Flower Mound, Texas/Flower Mound HS), junior Elias Spence (Shippensburg, Pa./Shippensburg Area HS) and sophomore Joshua Bergers (Cohasset, Mass./IMG Academy) return this year as the top runners for the men's squad. Bullock sits third on the Waves' all-time 8K list and fifth on the 10K list. Flint has notched new spots on the 8K list, now sitting at ninth and seventh on the 10K list. Spence and Bergers are both on the top-20 on the 8K and 10K lists.
 
Out of the six meets last season, seniors Ryan Hemphill (Visalia, Calif./Redwood HS), Nate Lannen (Southlake, Texas/Carroll HS), Nathaniel Lerch (Clarion, Pa./Clarion Area HS), junior Colin Proctor (Coppell, Texas/Coppell HS) and sophomores Ryan Fabian (Oxnard, Calif./Oxnard HS), Spencer Mueller (Freso, Calif./Clovis HS), Kai Newman (Temecula, Calif./Linfield Christian HS), Patrick Thomas (Paso Robles, Calif./Mission College Prep) and Daniel Whitaker (Lexington, Ky./Lafayette HS) were all huge assets to last year's squad and will return this season with more expectations. Additionally, the men bring in four newcomers, which are all true freshmen that include: Henry Hicks (Atlanta, Ga./The Lovett School), Kaleb McElfish (Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif./Tesoro HS), Gordy Nilsen (Boulder, Colo./Fairview HS) and Dominic Silhol (Mequon, Wis./Homestead HS).
 
WOMEN'S TEAM
 
Senior Elle Shrader (Boerne, Texas./Boerne-Samuel V. Champion HS) and juniors Megan LaCamera (Burbank, Calif./Burbank HS) and Eden Mittelsdorf (Nashville, Tenn./Brentwood HS) return for Pepperdine as the top runners this season. LaCamera and Mittelsdorf continue to make an impact on the squad being the Waves' number two and number four runners, and were the number one and two runners at the WCC Championships. LaCamera was named WCC Runner of the Week for the first-time in program history after collecting a personal record 6K at the UC Riverside Invitational, although she beat that time later in the season at the NCAA West Regional race, crossing at 22:05.4, which is good or 11th on the Pepperdine all-time 6K list. Shrader was the number three runner last season in almost all six races.
 
Other key returners for the Waves are juniors Brooke Bakken (Norwalk, Wis./Tomah HS), CeCe Fleenor (Alexandria, Va./Bishop O'Connell HS) and sophomores Ashley Eagan (St. Petersburg, Fla./St. Petersburg HS), Caroline Graham (Hockessin, Del./Delaware Military Academy), Nicole Hartung (Santa Clarita, Calilf./Saugus HS), Hannah Renager (Clifton, Va./James W. Robinson Secondary School) and Abby Winter (Edina, Minn./Southwest Christian HS) who are expected to help lead the squad this season. The Waves bring in 11 newcomers to the team who include Emerson Beard (Westlake Village, Calif./Oaks Christian HS), Hannah Bruner (Redmond, Wash./Lake Washington HS), Lizzy Crawford (Thornton, Colo./Horizon HS), Madeline Del Rio (Valencia, Calif./Saugus HS), Jessica Guardino (Monte Sereno, Calif./Valley Christian HS), Emma Martinez (Palmerton, Pa.Palmerton HS), Hannah Miller (Temecula, Calif./Great Oak HS), Lacey Reedy (Saint Simons Island, Ga./Glynn Academy), Kayla Renner (Centennial, Colo./Arapahoe HS), Renee Skiera (Arlington Heights, Ill./John Hersey HS) and Molly Wallace (Koloa, Hawaii/Kauai HS).
 
QUOTABLE
 
Head coach Lauren Floris said: "We've had a great start to our season so far. The team has been looking amazing in practice so we are looking forward to getting them in a race to see where they're at."
 
SCHEDULE
 
The 2023 schedule is highlighted by the Waves Invitational meet on Sept. 9, which Pepperdine hosted last season and had a women's first-place finish and men's second-place finish, respectively. The Waves Invitational will be held at the picturesque Alumni Park and will consist of a collegiate women's 4K and a collegiate men's 6K. The rest of the schedule includes UC Riverside Invitational (Sept. 16) and Santa Clara's Bronco Invitational (Oct. 14).  The postseason includes the WCC Championships on Oct. 28, in which Pepperdine is the host site and the NCAA West Regional on Nov. 10.
 
###