The men’s and women’s teams just missed.
The women’s team finished nine points behind first-place Texas Tech and 26 points ahead of third-place Iowa State.
“The women gave Texas Tech a really close run,” said CU head coach Mark Wetmore. “When we finally analyzed the results, it was a very close race.”
The men’s team finished 27 points behind first place Oklahoma State, who claimed the top four spots in the race. The Buffs were ahead of third-place Oklahoma, a team that beat them at pre-nationals two weeks ago, by 10 points.
In the women’s race, sophomore Laura Tremblay finished fourth overall, moving up ten spots from last year’s race. On the 6-kilometer course, her time was 20 minutes, 20.48 seconds.
Junior Emma Coburn, who placed 22nd last year, came in fifth at 20:27.
“This is a good performance for me to get top five,” Coburn said “I just wish we would have been a little closer to Texas Tech at the end.”
CU redshirt freshman Shalaya Kipp was the fastest freshman in the race, finishing eighth overall. Senior Laura Thweatt finished 11th. Redshirt freshman Camille Logan came in 25th to round-out the team score.
In the men’s race junior Andy Wacker led the Buffs with a fifth place in the 8-kilometer course in 24:14, improving from last year’s 13th place.
“[Andy] has put in a lot of good hard running and is getting better every season,” Wetmore said. “A couple of years ago [we] would not have expected him to be one of the better runners in the country by now.”
CU sophomore Joe Bosshard was close behind him in sixth.
“I think I did as well as I could have hoped for today,” Bosshard said. “Beating Oklahoma was a big goal and we took care of that.”
Only three seconds behind Bosshard was CU junior Christian Thompson in seventh place. Also scoring for CU were sophomore Aric Van Halen and senior Matt Tebo, who finished 10th and 18th respectively.
As a whole, Wetmore said he was impressed with the both teams’ performances and expects strong results for the remainder of the season.
“Our team really came through today,” Wetmore said. “The Big 12 is definitely one of the better conferences in the country and these teams are going to be our competition at nationals.”
The Buffs will get another chance to compete against the Big 12 schools at the NCAA Mountain Region Championships on Saturday, Nov. 13, in Salt Lake City.
Contact CU Independent staff writer Caryn Maconi at Caryn.maconi@colorado.edu.
