Bengals Compete Strong at Gans Creek Classic

Full Results

POCATELLO, Idaho - The Idaho State cross-country team took on a mid-season challenge Friday at the 2023 Gans Creek Classic hosted by the University of Missouri.

The Bengals competed against runners from across the nation including student-athletes from the Big 12, The Big 10, and the Pac-12 to mention some of the competition.

Head Coach Nate Houle discussed the Bengals' races after the competition.

"Every race we have on the schedule is intended to prepare us for the postseason. This meet at Missouri is meant to get us ready for a high-stakes, high-level meet and perform under pressure. We have a lot of freshmen and sophomores on the team who need to get a race like this under their belts.

The course is designed with a long 500m starting straight followed by a relatively sharp first turn which meant we were likely going to see a faster start than we wanted. The plan was to get out well but manage the effort to some degree and mostly focus on running our own race and staying focused on our strengths."

The day started with the men's 8K Division I race. Bengal Sophomore Seth Babble showed his strength during the race. At the 3K split, Babbel was marked in 89^th place over the next 5K, the Bengal kept pushing and fighting and moved up past 56 runners to finish in 33^rd place.

Gavin Pollock followed in second for the Bengals moving up 25 spots over the course of the race to finish 50^th.

" The men got out well, settled in for a bit, and then moved up well throughout the race," continued Houle. "We were projected to finish 14th and so after a few km I saw we were sitting right around there in the intermediate splits. We slipped back to 15th at one point and as a coach, you wonder what else they have in their legs for the final 1/3 when you drop a position in the middle of a race. Luckily, they managed their outputs well and closed strong, going from 15th at 6km to 14th at 7km and then finishing hard to jump up to 12th at the finish. The guys were talking before the race that they wanted to snag a win over Northern Iowa to get some payback after our loss to them in football so they were a little more excited after the race to see they got them over that final km."

In the women's 6K, the Bengals once again showed their mettle after falling behind in the start. Over the course of the race, the Bengals continued to push and fight to pick up team points and better team finishes.

Projected to finish 21^st headed into the race, the Bengal women broke all expectations, racing strong as a group and finishing in 13^th place.

Casandra Vasquez took advantage of the field to grow as a runner. After falling to 82^nd place in the first split, the Bengal Jr. clawed her way past 48 other runners over 5K to finish 34^th overall.

After clocking in at 156^th place on the first split, Madi Kenyon never gave up, overtaking 99 other runners to finish in 57^th overall place, running her fastest split of the race in the final 1000 meters.

Sulette Ferreyra also picked up a  top-75 finish Friday morning, moving from 146^th to 66^th-place finish, continually increasing her splits as the race went on.

"We came in projected to finish 21st/23 teams so the game was to stay calm and stay tough," said Houle. "We've seen some good progression over the past few weeks in their training so I was curious how this would shake out. They went out right as projected, coming through 1km in 21st. We kept a close eye on how they would respond to such a fast early start as this was many of their first big collegiate race (and first 6km race). The shock of being in the back of a 200-person race while feeling like you're going all out can make you panic. Luckily they all held their composure really well and started fighting forward as a team. As the results show, they progressed really quickly through the field at each checkpoint. We passed no less than 35 people as a team between every km throughout the entire race. We were stunned to see them continue to progress forward so quickly and ended up shedding 53 more points just in that final km jumping clear up to 13th as a team. I really don't know if I've had a women's team performance exceed my expectations to this degree in my 8+ years here at ISU. They did phenomenally well in a stressful, hot, and humid race to upset so many teams."

The Bengals picked up some solid wins today against some big name schools such as Marquette, Baylor, Creighton and Nebraska.

Looking Ahead

Next up for the Bengals, the Orange and Black are back in the Mountain West in Cedar City, Utah taking on the Color Country Invitational hosted by Southern Utah University.