LC State cross country teams running to Nationals for 24th, 21st straight seasons

The last time the Lewis-Clark State cross country team did not make it to NAIA Nationals, most of the Warrior runners preparing to participate on Friday were yet to be born.

Under head coach Mike Collins, LC State has sent the women’s team to nationals 24 consecutive years and the men have gone in 21 straight.

The Warriors will participate at the NAIA National Championships with the first race at 8:30 a.m. Pacific on Friday in Columbia, Mo.

“When (a) tradition starts, I’m not sure you always know it’s your tradition until it becomes, in some ways, almost like there’s a little bit of an expectation,” Collins said. “I know the kids put pressure on themselves now to not be the team to let that thing slip away.”

While both the women and men were able to continue the long-held LC State tradition, they took different paths to the finish line. For the men, Collins said it is the deepest team he has had. The women’s group was a bigger question mark at the start of the year with so many new faces. It is safe to say that the new faces have exceeded all expectations.

“You think you know how talented they may or may not be until they actually get out and run,” Collins said. “So it’s been pretty cool.”

Most recently, the Warriors finished third on both the men’s and women’s sides at the Cascade Conference championship meet earlier this month in Portland.

Leading the charge for the women is freshman Damaris Kibiwot. The runner from Eldoret, Kenya, earned All-Cascade Conference honors with a sixth-place finish at the conference championship meet when she completed the 6-kilometer race in a time of 22 minutes, 43.0 seconds.

Kibiwot took a massive jump on Oct. 26 at the Blazing Tiger Classic in Crete, Neb., when the freshman cut off nearly 50 seconds from her personal record with a time of 22:30.

“The first meet of the year, she took off like crazy. It was like, oh my gosh, and she paid for it. But I think she just really wasn’t in shape yet at that time,” Collins said. “ But she’s been getting in literally better shape every day. I’m hoping that we’re going to see even another step up this next week at Nationals, that she’s just continuing to get better.”

Spokane Falls Community College transfer Camille Ussher edged out freshman Lily Bennett for the final All-CCC spot when she crossed the line 15th at the conference meet. Ussher has been dealing with injuries this season and has been improving her times throughout the year.

The fact that the first three Warriors to cross the line were new faces showed the wild turnover that the women’s team went through, but Collins believes that the new crew is helping push everyone to be better.

“The team is very much made up of girls that are there trying to get better and pushing each other,” Collins said. “Grace Tiegs (from Orofino), who’s a returner and has done really well this year, has had somebody to chase and perform with.”

On the men’s side, the biggest issue for Collins has been trying to figure out who to place in the race each week.

“Deepest team we’ve ever had, and, I mean, they’ve made it challenging. At conference I can only run 10 guys, and I agonized over that,” Collins said. “It’s going to make the national team that much harder because I can only choose seven.”

Senior Carter Gordon, who won the indoor 800-meter national championship last spring, has been a leader on and off the running path for LC State. Gordon earned his first All-CCC honors in cross country with a 12th-place finish at the conference championship with an 8k time of 25:34.0.

“(Carter has) been pretty much a leader for the last couple of years within the team, both verbally as well as from action — he’s got such range,” Collins said. “He’s just really calm, very mature, very consistent, he’s really been kind of an anchor and a core.”

All-CCC runner Griffen Parsells, junior Alexander Fry and former Lewiston Bengal Kobe Wessels all finished within a 20-second gap at the conference championship.

The Warrior men’s cross country roster has enough runners that they could fill two separate national squads if allowed.

Headed into the biggest race of the year, Collins said that the difference between one runner to another physically could be minimal. It makes the mental part of running that much more important.

“You get to the point where your fitness is your fitness. ... You get to a point where physically I could have two people identical,” Collins said. “I mean, I could put them in the lab and test them and go, you and you are the same. There’s no difference physiologically, you’re the same size, same VO2 (maximal oxygen consumption), same capabilities, same training, yet somebody’s going to win, and it’s like, so what’s the difference?”

Collins said that they work on mental skills during practice. He wants to make sure that his team is able to visualize what it is like to run at a meet like Nationals before stepping foot in Missouri.

“I tell them to visualize what it’s like with people around you, and moving at race speed versus our easy running,” Collins said. “What’s it smell like? What does it feel like? how cold is it? Feeling people bump you, and people yelling and just every sensory aspect that we can put into that visualization. The more real it becomes, and then the better you can actually replicate what you’re trying to do on race day.”

The 27th-year LC coach likes to talk about races and workouts like they are being graded. He believes that while both teams are headed to Nationals, they have not achieved an “A” race yet.

“We haven’t quite accomplished what we had goal-wise planned, that we were striving for, but we still got another race to see what happens,” Collins said. “And like I said, if we have an ‘A’ race next Friday, it’ll be a fun day for them. And regardless, we’ll have fun anyway, I mean, they’re just a fun group to be around.”

Isbelle can be reached at 208-848-2268, risbelle@lmtribune.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @RandyIsbelle.