Pepperdine University
Waves Invitational
2024 Pepperdine Cross Country Season Begins at Home This Friday
8/28/2024 12:58:00 PM | Cross Country
MALIBU, Calif. — Ten months removed from toeing the line for the West Coast Conference Cross Country Championships at Alumni Park, the Pepperdine cross-country team returns to its home course for the season-opening Waves Invitational on Friday.
Friday's race is the only time the Waves will compete at home this season. Pepperdine branded cowbells will be given out to the first 50 fans in attendance. The men's 6-kilometer race starts at 4:30 p.m. with the women's 4K to follow at 5:15 p.m. Although the race will not be livestreamed, a link to live stats can be found on the cross-country team's schedule page at pepperdinewaves.com.
Including Pepperdine, seven women's teams and five men's teams will toe the line in Malibu this Friday. Division I teams Cal Poly, Cal State Bakersfield, CSUN, LMU, Long Beach State, San Diego State and new Big Ten member USC will be in attendance. The lone WCC school in attendance, LMU will only send its women's team, as the LMU athletic department cut the men's cross country and track programs earlier this spring.
Plenty has changed for the Waves since they competed at Alumni Park 10 months ago for the 2023 WCC Championships. Head coach Lauren Floris enters her fourth season coaching at her alma mater, and both teams look to improve after the men placed sixth and the women finished seventh at conference.Â
Although the men's team lost upperclassmen Johnathan Flint and Will Bullock to graduation, Pepperdine's core remained intact from last year's squad. Sophomore Dominic Silhol put together a promising season as a true freshman last year: He was Pepperdine's second runner at WCCs, was a scoring runner in both postseason races and ranks 17th on the program's top-20 8K time leaderboard with his 24:58.3 time at the Bronco Invitational. During track season, he ran the team's eighth-fastest 5K time and the 10th-fastest 3K time, putting him in a prime position for a breakout year.
Junior Patrick Thomas also returns, giving the Waves a consistent top-three runner who also excels at the longer distances on the track. Rounding out the returning scoring runners from last year's WCC Championships, Joshua Bergers is one of the few Waves on the program's top-10 8K and 10K rankings. Spencer Mueller, Gordy Nilsen, plus his twin brother Rowan Nilsen — who joined Pepperdine after LMU discontinued its men's cross country and track programs — give the Waves a solid group of runners with Division I experience.
On the women's side, the storylines start with Lizzy Crawford, who put together one of the best individual cross-country seasons in program history as a true freshman. In just her third collegiate cross-country race, she ran the program's second-fastest 6K time of 20:52.2, which was less than 20 seconds shy of the school record. She was Pepperdine's top runner in all five races she ran, including both postseason races. Eden Mittelsdorf, who was Pepperdine's second runner during the 2022 season, and Brooke Bakken are the lone seniors on the women's team.
Floris brought in six freshmen — two men and four women — over the offseason. On the men's side, Colin Knowles was a 4:23 miler and helped Batavia High School win a 2A Illinois state title in 2022. A promising steeplechase runner from New York, Elijah Gentry graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School with nine school records, a steeplechase state title and a seventh-place finish in the 2,000-meter steeplechase at New Balance Nationals this past summer. He'll be expected to be a contributing runner right away on the grass.
As for the women, Riley Burgess, Kennedy Duralde, Sarina Patel and Grace Simpson are this year's true freshmen. Burgess, who has a personal best of 5:11.29 in the 1,600-meter run and an 11:23.70 PR in the 3,200-meter run, comes in with the fastest track times, while Simpson also broke 12 minutes in the 3,200 meters. Duralde is primarily a mid-distance runner with a 2:14.98 800-meter PR, but she also ran 5:22.96 in the 1,600. Rounding out the group, Patel was a two-time school record holder for Yorba Linda High School and helped the Mustangs qualify for the 2023 CIF State Cross Country Championships.
Earlier this month, the Gonzaga and Portland men's cross-country teams were picked to win the WCC, while Gonzaga was picked as the favorite on the women's side. The Pepperdine men were picked to finish seventh out of eight teams in the WCC, while the women were tied for ninth with LMU.
From here, Pepperdine has several weeks of training before its next meet: The Pacific Invite, held in Stockton, Calif. on Sept. 23.
Players Mentioned
