Saints off to promising start in cross country season 

The Saint Martin’s University Cross Country teams were right on track after competing in their first two invitationals of the cross country season last September under new head coach Gabriel Trimbur. 

The Saints opened their season on the Gator Invitational last September 14, hosted by the Greenriver College at Fort Steilacoom Park in Lakewood, WA, where the men’s cross country team placed 10th out of 13 participating schools in the team results while the women’s team were just one player short for a placement spot. 

Junior runner Eli Dale leads the team in the men’s 6k run, who finished 35th out of 135 participating runners with a time of 18:28.8 or an average pace of 4:57.4 mile. Noe Ortega, Timmy Higgins, and Aric Jacklin snaked in the top 100 runners, while freshman Jordan Pacheco-Mendez finished 132nd, with the quintet scoring a cumulative score of 276. 

For the women’s team, Kya Ramirez was the first Saint to finish the women’s 4k run as she clocked in at 15:05.6 or an average pace of 06:04.3/mile, a new personal best for the senior distance runner as she finished 57th out of 103 runners. Her teammates Olivia Mitchell, Ruby Bryntesen, and Charis Deitemeyer all finished inside the top 90 finishers. 

Two weeks later, the Saints fielded complete cross country teams in the Western Washington University Bill Roe Invitational, held last September 28 at Hovander Homestead Park in Ferndale. The men’s and women’s teams placed 8th overall for both the men’s 8k run and women’s 6k run, with Dale and Ramirez leading the squads again. 

Ramirez was just less than a second off her personal best in the 6k run, as she crossed the finish line at 23:42.2 or a 6:21.4 mile good enough for a 67th place finish out of 120 participating runners. She was joined by Mitchell, Bryntesen, Deitemeyer, and Mira Jayarama, who all ran competitively for the first time in the 6k cross country.  

Dale led the men’s team in the 8k distance, setting a personal record with a time of 25:28.0 or a 5:07.4 average mile for a 41st place finish out of 175 competitors.

Along with him are Ortega and Higgins, who also beat their personal records in the 8k, while Ethan Coon, Matthus Andersen, and Jordan Pacheco-Mendez recorded their first-ever competitive 8k times for the Saints. 

"I think we raced well for where we're at in the season," said coach Trimbur on the team’s performances this season. The expectation was to get out and experience the 6k/8k distance and remind ourselves of how it feels to undergo that level of stress and discomfort. 

I'm proud of how these athletes have handled the training load over the last couple of months and how they keep their long-term goals in mind as they continue to stack each week on top of each other,” Trimbur added.

The Emerald City Open, which will be held this Saturday, October 12th, at Lower Woodland Park in Seattle, Washington, will feature both men’s and women’s cross-country teams.