RIVERSIDE, Calif. — With two weeks to go until the West Coast Conference championships, the Pepperdine cross-country team needed a good tune-up race before the postseason.
Thankfully for the Waves, they delivered.
In a race that saw 13 new personal-best times occur across both teams, the Waves men placed seventh and the women placed 10th at UC Riverside's Highlander Invitational on Saturday. Competing in races with over 20 scoring teams and 200 runners, the Waves took advantage of the Ag Ops Course's flat, fast terrain and near-perfect weather to improve across the board.
The frontrunners were the same on both sides, as Gordy Nilsen and Lizzy Crawford led the Waves for the fourth time this year. Leading the Waves with a 13th-place finish and a season-best 6-kilometer time of 21:19.1, Crawford led Pepperdine for the ninth-straight race, which is the third-longest streak in program history.
Five of Pepperdine's top seven women ran personal bests. Senior Eden Mittelsdorf clocked a 22:15.6 6K time to place second for the Waves (and 48th overall), plus Caroline Graham (22:32.6, 61st), Riley Burgess (23:28.6, 134th) and Grace Simpson (23:36.0, 142nd) all ran personal-best times to round out the scoring runners. With her time, Mittelsdorf now sits 17th in the program's top-20 6K rankings.
Despite running without two of the team's consistent varsity contributors, Pepperdine's 237 points amounted to a 10th-place finish out of 24 schools, including the likes of USC (13th), CSUN (14th) and others.
Over on the men's side, Nilsen covered the 8-kilometer course in 24:52.1, which placed him 26th out of 259 runners. Thanks to a strong start that positioned him squarely in the front pack, Elijah Gentry PRed in the 8K distance for the second-straight race with his time of 25:00.3 to place 31st. From there, the next three men went sub-25: Patrick Thomas (25:16.7, 46th), Dominic Silhol (25:21.6, 53rd) and Rowan Nilsen (25:36.2, 65th) all finished in the top 70 to help the Waves place seventh out of 20 teams with 163 points.
All told, the men placed well ahead of fellow WCC school San Diego, which finished 13th with 411 points.
Pepperdine will begin the postseason in two weeks with a trip to the WCC Championships in Lodi, Calif. on Nov. 2. From there, the team has one more guaranteed race: The NCAA West Regionals, held in Colfax, Wash. on Nov. 15.
