By Michael KlitzingStaff Writer
Sometimes your best is just not good enough.
San Diego State headed into Saturday’s Mountain West ConferenceChampionships in Fort Collins, Colo. with dreams of a top-threefinish dancing in their heads. Unfortunately for the Aztecs, AirForce and Utah did not share their vision. SDSU finished in fifthplace with 166 points in the 6K event. The Falcons took third (112)followed closely by the Utes (118).
Asexpected, the defending national champs, BYU, retained its conferencetitle with a microscopic score of 16. Led by the fastest individualrunner, Lindsay Thomsen (20 minutes, 49.7 seconds), Cougars athletessecured the top four spots. Their fifth and final scoring runnerplaced sixth. Overshadowed by the Tiger Woodsian domination of BYUwas Colorado State’s strong second place finish. The Rams’ fivescoring runners all placed between seventh and 15th.
By comparison, the top Aztec finisher, Kylie Edwards, took 28thplace in 23:10.2.
Still, SDSU assistant coach Jennifer Nanista said she is pleasedwith the team’s performance.
“They ran a very tough race,” Nanista said. “To stay in it as longas they did and not back off or say ‘Oh, well Sophia (Hawker) isthere. I’m running too fast.’ In general, I think the entire squadran really tough.”
Aztecs head coach Rahn Sheffield agreed.
“I was pretty proud of the way they ran,” Sheffield said. “Theycompeted together. I would hope now that they know they canaccomplish this feat of staying together, we will finish even betterin the future.”
Things could have been worse had the Aztecs not received a boostfrom an unexpected source. The late promotion of senior Maria Morenoon to the traveling squad proved to be well deserved.
SDSU finished the race tied in points with UNLV. The tiebreakerwas determined by the place of each team’s sixth runner. For theAztecs, that runner was Moreno. Her time of 24:26 bested the Rebels’Candice Happ-Rausch by over a minute.
“I wanted to do everything that I could possibly do to help theteam,” Moreno said. “Last year at conference I was able to step upand be the fifth runner, so I wanted to do something like that thisyear.”
Said Nanista: “Maria runs off of pure heart. She is the type ofathlete that if she sees someone else having a rough time, she jumpsright in. We push her to her limit and she always comes up big forus.”
While Moreno was the difference-maker, the issue was neverseriously in doubt. Hillery Gemmill (24:48) and Meriah Earle (24:53)also finished comfortably ahead of Rausch.
Following Edwards as the next fastest Aztec was Alicia Stewart(23:20). Nanista said this will be an experience that Stewart canbuild off of.
“I think Alicia gained a lot of confidence from this,” Nanistasaid. “I always told her that if she hangs around long enough, shehas the speed to finish well. And she did just that.”
Finishing third on the team was Hawker, who clocked in at 23:27.Buffy Brown (23:37) and Jennifer Stakiw (23:40) rounded out thetop-five. Hawker said she was pleased with the way the team ran butsaid her own performance was not up to her own standards.
“I didn’t do as well as I would have liked,” she said. “It wasn’tas good as I did last year, so it was disappointing.”
“Sophia is not a person who runs well at altitude,” Nanista said.”That’s not a negative on her part, it’s just that some peoplephysiologically cannot run well at altitude.”
However the most dramatic performance of the championships wasturned in by Gemmill. The junior, who was wobbly in the last 100meters, collapsed from exhaustion after the race and was taken to alocal hospital.
“You can’t teach a person that kind of courage,” Sheffield said.”Everybody wishes they could put their bodies through what she putsher body through every time it’s showtime. Hillery Gemmill has boughtinto what it means to be an Aztec.”
