Once Is Never Enough As Men Seek NCAA Return
September 18, 2015 | Cross Country
Washington hosts the 24th annual Sundodger Invitational this Saturday at Lincoln Park in West Seattle. The first race goes off at 9:00 a.m. with the Huskies running in the Women's Invitational at 11:00 and Men's Invitational at 11:35. The Dawgs will be racing against Washington State, Fresno State, Hawaii, Nevada, Portland State, Seattle U., and Tulane in the Invitational races.
Sundodger Invitational Meet Info
SEATTLE – After a couple big firsts last season, the men's distance Dawgs are looking to go back for seconds this fall. Last year, the Husky men made their first trip to NCAAs since 2009, and for the first time in history, they saw two All-Americans in the same season. Having broken through into the top-20, Washington is now hoping to stick around and use that experience to its advantage in 2015.
One year ago, the Huskies went into the season with just one runner that had reached the big show in Terre Haute: All-American senior Aaron Nelson. Fast forward to today, and the Huskies have four returning athletes that ran at the NCAA Championships last year, and while Nelson won't be leading the pack on race day, the fifth-year senior is still part of the training group as he has a year of track remaining.
Head Coach Greg Metcalf thinks the lessons learned from 2014 are making for a confident group this fall, a group this is “healthy and excited to get this thing started,” he says. “The goal is to get back to the NCAA Championships and be a little better on the day than we were a year ago.”
In Terre Haute last November, it was a bit of a tale of two races, as Nelson and Tyler King had fantastic days and earned All-America medals, with Nelson placing 21st and King grabbing the final All-America spot at No. 40, but the gap between the top two and the next five Dawgs was wider than it had been throughout the season, and left Metcalf feeling like the 20th-place team finish could have been even better, perhaps threatening the top-10 which UW last made on the men's side in 1993.
"The goal is to get back to the NCAA Championships and be a little better on the day than we were a year ago."
“We sort of missed a chance last year to have five guys run well on the day of the finals,” says Metcalf. “But we went to the indoor season and Izaic Yorks, Colby Gilbert, and Aaron Nelson break school records in the mile, 3k and 5k and they make NCAA Indoors, then Izaic wins the Pac-12 title outdoors, and Fred Huxham and Andrew Gardner made some big strides on the track, while Tyler gets a big 10k PR, and so I think that our group comes into the year a more confident group because of what they did last year.”
Along with being two of the top returners, King and Yorks are both heading into their senior seasons on the cross country courses, and are the type of team-first, all-out effort runners that any team would love to build around.
“It's such a collective sport, and I think that's been the vibe listening to our guys and their conversations,” Metcalf says. “It is about, 'hey what can this team go do?' and not about one guy. I think that's where success in the fall builds with that mentality and I think that's how Tyler and Izaic live their lives as distance runners.”
King's 40th-place cross country finish was like a “lightning bolt of confidence” for the Coupeville, Wash. native, says Metcalf. He was also 12th at the Pac-12 Championships last year to earn All-Pac-12 Second Team, and on the track King ran a 10,000-meters PR of 28:59.37 and advanced to NCAA West Prelims.
“I think Tyler comes in with the same level of optimism in that he understands how hard it is to be in the top-40, but knows that he's capable. His goals are realistic,” Metcalf says, “his goal is to get to the NCAA Championships and be a veteran and have a solid day, and if that means he will finish in the top-40 again that will be great. I'd say he's in a little better place than he was last year at this time, so that's exciting.
Yorks made history in the spring with his 1,500-meter victory at the Pac-12 Championships at UCLA, becoming the first Husky to win the event since 1987. During the indoor season he became the fastest miler in Washington history with another conference win at the MPSF Championships where he clocked a 3:57.81 mile. But Yorks has shown that he can extend his range from 800-meters on the track all the way up to the 10k of championship cross country. He was 24th at the NCAA West Regional meet last year to earn All-West Region honors, and he placed 159th overall at the national meet.
“He just seems more calm and confident and mature,” Metcalf says of Yorks, speculating that getting married over the summer may have something to do with that. “But he's just in a really good spot right now, training is going well and I think he also has realistic goals for the fall. I look at Izaic Yorks and that's where Tyler's a positive because Tyler did it last year, and so Izaic believes he can do it as well.”
Key to Washington's success last year and perhaps an even bigger factor this year is Colby Gilbert, who became the first Husky male to win Pac-12 Freshman of the Year last season as a redshirt frosh. Gilbert went on to break the UW indoor 3,000-meters record and earn All-America Second Team honors.
Colby Gilbert set the UW school record at 3,000-meters last year, going 7:49.25 and making NCAA Indoors.
Metcalf says Gilbert has some lofty goals for the fall. “Colby is a super talented kid so we just have to keep him off the edge. He's excited and a fiercely driven young man and wants to succeed and has big time goals for the cross season and the track season. Our goal is to kind of use the brakes a little bit when we can, but he's as gifted and talented a kid as we've ever had in our program. I'm excited to see this season unfold and get him to the starting line.”
Midway through last fall, the coaching staff saw so much to like about what true freshman Fred Huxham was bringing to practice each day that they handed him a jersey, and the Ross, Calif. product made his official debut at the Pac-12 Championships, going on to run at NCAAs as well. While Huxham's results in the fall were not overwhelming, he built throughout the year and finished with a couple outstanding races on the track, running 13:50.10 for 5,000-meters at the Payton Jordan Invitational.
Having the championship meet experiences from last fall should give Huxham a leg up this year, Metcalf says. “Those are invaluable experiences. And he got to go represent the U.S. in the Pan American Juniors in cross and then he had a great track season. I think Fred continued the momentum into the summer and into the fall and he is much improved. He has All-America aspirations and I think he has that ability.”
For the Huskies to make it back-to-back NCAA trips this fall, there will have to be a top-five scorer that was not on that starting line Terre Haute last year. Metcalf knows several runners will be contending for that spot all season, with sophomores Andrew Gardner and Johnathan Stevens, junior Blake Nelson, and redshirt freshmen Mahmoud Moussa and Drew Schreiber all making strides.
Gardner is coming off a successful track season where he broke nine-minutes in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and competed at the NCAA West Prelims. He went for the win at the UW-Seattle U. Open a couple weeks back, after a great summer of training.
"I think Fred continued the momentum into the summer and into the fall and he is much improved. He has All-America aspirations and I think he has that ability."
“Just a year ago Andrew was recovering from falling and hurting his knee, so now he's had a consistent year of running and training and I think he had a very solid track season. We've been excited about Andrew,” says Metcalf, “now he comes into the fall healthy and I'm excited to have him in a uniform and see what happens. He definitely can make a big impact on our team this fall.”
Stevens also made his first inroads into the postseason last spring as he reached West Prelims in the 1,500-meters, after a PR during the year of 3:44.87. Metcalf expects the third-year sophomore to be a regular in the top-seven this year, if not higher. “Johnathan and Fred had a great workout (Wednesday) at Lincoln Park, and he's another where you look at him on the starting line from last year to this year, and now his track PRs are dramatically better. Now he's a 3:44/14:17 guy who has run at the Pac-12 meet and the West Prelims, so I think those experiences just fill you with confidence.”
A former All-American on the distance medley relay, and a top-seven finisher for UW at the 2013 Pac-12 Championships, “Blake Nelson is another who has run in our top seven, and his summer was solid, so Blake is a guy that I think as the calendar turns to October and November, he's a veteran and I think at the point he should be rolling and can go positively impact our team.”
Moussa and Schreiber have come a long way in just a year's time, Metcalf says. Schreiber will try to duplicate Izaic Yorks' range, as Schreiber ran predominantly at 800-meters on the track last spring and even dropped down to run 4x400-meter legs, helping UW take third in that even at the Pac-12 Championships. Moussa redshirted the full year, but has used the year to full advantage and looks ready to suit up.
“Mahmoud and Drew are both guys I think that right now have a shot to run our top seven and have looked good so far in the first four weeks we've been here,” Metcalf says. “They've grown and matured in the last year and they are excited to see what they can do and I'm looking forward to each of them furthering their progression.”
Sophomore Keith Williams had his best track season yet last spring but the fall will be a prelude to the 2016 track season, says Metcalf. “We want Keith to continue to build strength and use the fall as preparation from a competitive and training standpoint for the track.” The same is true for Jacob Smith, who Metcalf calls “a very capable athlete that just needs some momentum and then get that competitive spark ignited once again.”
Five new freshmen round out the roster: Charlie Barringer, Julius Diehr, Ben Mahony, Connor Morello, and Andrew Snyder, with Morello expected to concentrate on mid-distances on the track. The four longer distance additions are a very coachable group, Metcalf says, “and they've just fit right in. You never know what they're going to be like until they're on campus but I'm excited about this group and I think collectively they want to do it, they are engaged and they are going to be a great group.”
Players Mentioned
