Double Titles for Mounties

Running in new uniforms, the EOU Harriers were up to the task of tackling a very technically challenging course and some tough competition, as the Mounties were able to capture both team titles in the same meet for the first time since 1999, with the Women recapturing the Conference Title they last held in 2005 and the Men in 2003.
All this on a chewed up course (after two days of area High School races and record rain fall on Friday) that slowed conditions down on the Eagle Island State Park course considerably from the Bob Firman Invite of a month ago.

Women win Squeaker on Kicks:

In what was expected to be a tight team battle between College of Idaho, EOU and Corban, the team battle came down to a fast finish between the Mounties of EOU and the Coyotes of C of I after roughly 3 miles of intense racing. Both Marcella Bosch and Dani Murphy out kicked opponents in the last 100 meters to secure a 3 point margin of victory over host College of Idaho. In Marcella's case she out kicked a runner from Northwest University of Kirkland, WA, to shave one point off of EOU's score and Dani (EOU's #5 runner) out kicked College of Idaho's number 5 runner to add one point to their score and shave one point off of EOU's score, thus securing the win. Eastern took a bit of a hit early in the race when Stephanie Windle fell hard on a tight, muddy turn, but Windle got up to finish a very respectable 7th over all. Stephanie was closely followed Sara Bates and Christy Pletan in 9th and 10th. The top 12 finishers in each race are recognized as All Conference, so the top 4 EOU Harriers were recognized as All Conference.

Men Pack up for Win:

Like the women's race, the men's team battle was expected to be a three way battle, this time between EOU, C of I and Southern Oregon U. Unlike the Women, despite a strong late race rally by SOU, the EOU Men won pretty comfortably, using strong pack dynamics in what started out as a slow tactical battle through two of the roughly 5 miles of the race and then turned into a dog fight over the last three miles, to place 8 runners in the top 17 and 5 in the coveted All Conference top 12.
The Mounties have been working on team pack dynamics all season and today that paid off as there was less than a minute gap between their number one runner and their number 8 runner. The charge was led by Zach Heath in 3rd and followed by Doug Benson in 7th, Troy Blackburn in 10th, Morgan Saltenberger in 11th and Josh Ego in 12th, the last three just one second apart! Those 5 All Conference runners were followed closely by Cameron Starner in 14th, Adam Goulet in 16th and Justin Dean in 17th.

Summary:
All in all, it was a very satisfying weekend, especially as the Mounties are in a tough training cycle and no one was any where near feeling fresh today. Hopefully this meet will help position them well for the upcoming battle at the Region Meet (and National Qualifying race) in Olympia Washington on November 3rd where they will see the same Conference foes plus national powers such as Simon Fraser, University of British Columbia and Lewis-Clark State College.
Overall results can be found at the College of Idaho web site (still Albertson College on the web).

On a side note, EOU Head Coach Ben Welch was recognized as Conference Coach of the Year for both Men and Women- special thanks to Assistant Coach Jack Kegg, especially for all the help preparing the Women.