TUCSON — NAU’s cross country teams came down from the mountain Saturday to, in the words of coach Mike Smith, experience some grass, some lower elevation and lots of heat, if not stiff competition, at the Dave Murray Invitational.
Considering these are college students, you could say their grades were A-plus.
The Lumberjack men posted a perfect score of 15 even after Cael Grotenhuis and Santiago Prosser, who both started the race, used it as a glorified 5K workout and then dropped. NAU had more than enough firepower, with sophomore Justin Keyes taking the victory in 23:04 over the 8K course at the Tucson Country Club.
The women finished seconds through sixth to win with 20 points, besting New Mexico State by 35 points. Ava Mitchell, the sophomore from Colorado, led a slew of Lumberjack women with a second-place finish for 20:45, followed closely by Rutgers transfer Alex Carlson, third in 20:57.
Smith intentionally held out most of his top women and men’s runners, though the entire squads were on hand in the 90-degree morning heat to get in workouts. As said he was pleased by his teams’ efforts.
“We come down here for two reasons: oxygen and grass, both of which we don’t have in Flag,” Smith said. “That actually gets into the cadences we are going to be racing in throughout the season, race paces that are more relevant to what we do. Also, grass. We have less of that in Flag.”
Next Friday, NAU will be back on the grass at the Joe Piane Invitational at Notre Dame, contested on golf course. And Smith said to expect NAU to run more of their top runners there, before the Pre-Nationals in Wisconsin on Oct. 19.
“Those are great, competitive courses, so (today) we just needed to get on here and shake off the rust,” he said.
Smith praised Keyes’ progress.
“It’s good for an Arizona kid (Keyes was a high-school star) to have a win at home, and he’s had a big summer of training,” Smith said. “It’s a good sign for what’s to come for him, but he still needs to get more race experience. This was not a race where they were super pushed by the field, but that’s coming later for sure.”
Keyes said, though, that he was pushed — by his teammates. Senior Corey Gorgas placed second in 23:11 and redshirt freshman Manny Perez (running unattached) was third in 23:11. That was followed by Erik Le Roux, Ford Washburn, Zack Munson, Aiden Puffer and Caleb Easton.
“We have a lot of guys pushing ourselves, so that’s really cool, especially in the latter half when I was running with Corey,” Keyes said. “He really helped me out. The first 3K, we want out very conservative and ended up being in a pack, and it was perfect. We were just racing from there, and I was just following my teammates.”
That’s pretty much how the women’s race played out, as well, although Arizona’s Lydia Russell took the win in 20:21. Mitchell pulled away of the NAU pack late but Carlson, Haley Burns, freshman Emma Stutzman, Anna Fenske and Alexis Kebbe mostly stayed intact until the final stretch. True freshmen Kiki Vaughn and Payton Godsey, both running unattached, finished eighth and ninth.
Mitchell said the plan for the women was the stick together through the first half of the 6K.
“It was really fun to know the entire team was with us,” she said. “We were talking to each other and encouraging each other. Then, at 3K, even through 4K, we started to split up and I just kind of turned on race gears.”
Smith felt the women’s team, which is incredibly deep, accomplished what it needed to do.
“You’ll see many more of the faces you are familiar with at Notre Dame,” he said. “We won’t race a full lineup there, but two weeks later at Wisconsin, you’ll see everything we have available.
“Sometimes, you’ve got a team that needs points during the season, and we don’t think it’s going to be an issue with us. We’re really training for late November now (Regionals and Nationals), so we don’t want to be too excited too soon. It’s a lot of aerobic training at altitude now. It’s an excited group so there’s a danger that we (don’t want) to get them going too early.”
It’s doubtful that NAU’s top women’s runner, Elise Stearns, will make her season debut at Notre Dame. Smith said Stearns is finally healthy after a lingering injury from last spring.
“It’s us versus the calendar with her right now,” Smith said. “You’ll see her sometime in the Pre-Nats, (Big Sky) Conference window.”
For the men, a few runners have battled illness, but Smith said it was planned for Grotenhuis and Prosser to only run part of Saturday’s race. Both are healthy.
Touted redshirt freshman Aaron Sahlman was with the team at the race, but did not suit up. Smith said it may be doubtful that Aaron Sahlman will run this cross country season.
“Aaron had a long injury his (true) freshman season — a groin-adductor issue — and he’s fine now,” Smith said. “We’ve got it turned around, so we got to go really slow with it. We’re pointing toward track season.”
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