SEATTLE - Sophomore Teegan Schoch's top-10 finish highlighted a strong day for the University of Idaho cross country teams on Saturday at the Sundodger Invitational, as the women finished fourth and the men took fifth.
"Our expectations were a little bit higher, but it's hard to have very accurate expectations (this early in the year)," Idaho head coach Wayne Phipps said. "There were some positive things out of it, but we'll need to continue to get better, and I'm pretty confident that, in a few weeks' time, we'll be that much better than we are right now."
Schoch, who was competing in her first meet of the season, ran a 21:16.70 on the 6,000-meter course and finished ninth overall. On the men's side, sophomore Markus Geiger was the team's top finisher for the second meet in a row, as he ran a 24:35.19 on the 8,000-meter course and took 11th.
The women's team put five runners in the top 25 scoring positions, as senior Maike Holthuijzen (18th, 22:22.45), Lauren Schaffer (20th, 22:36.57), Julia Veseth (22nd, 22:46.73) and Melissa McFaddan (25th, 22:48.67) rounded out the scoring for the Vandals, which scored 93 as a team.
On the men's side, Jeremiah Johnston (20th), James Clark (29th), Sam Salus (35th) and Lars Lunstrum (41st) rounded out the top five scorers as Idaho put up 135 points.
Schoch showed a huge improvement at the meet, as she knocked 42 seconds off her previous personal record for the course, and jumped 20 places over last year's 29th-place finish. Geiger also cut a chunk out of his previous best, as he trimmed 29 seconds off his time and jumped up 28 places.
"Teegan ran a fantastic race, and it might have even been a little too conservative," Phipps said of Schoch. "And I thought Markus ran a pretty good race. He's still in a very high-volume (training) time, so I was very impressed with him being able to run that fast at this time of the year."
Schoch and Geiger were two of many Vandals with significant time improvements. In the men's race, Clark, a sophomore, knocked 13 seconds off his previous best time, while in the women's race, Erica Digby cut 16 seconds, McFaddan dropped 10, Schaffer trimmed 32 seconds and sophomore Julia Veseth showed the biggest improvement, as she knocked out a full 49 seconds.
Phipps said he was glad to see improvements in some times, and also noted that some of the team's young runners had a bit of trouble maintaining their concentration on a course that was longer and more competitive than the Clash of the Inland Northwest two weeks prior.
"I could see some people felt a little bit lost on the course at times and had difficulty responding to the level of competition," Phipps said. "Then we had a few people who appeared completely unfazed and responded very well to the competition."
Next on the calendar for Idaho cross country is a trip to Salem, Ore., and the Charles Bowles Willamette Invitational, where the Vandal women took a narrow second-place team finish last season. Again, Idaho will have a week off between meets, as the Bowles meet will be on Oct. 3.
