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Knights Run at Bushnell Invitational Saturday in Cottage Grove

Knights Run at Bushnell Invitational Saturday in Cottage Grove

11/6/2020 9:36:00 PM

Randy Dalzell

PORTLAND | It had been 238 days since a Knight had competed in a collegiate competition but on Saturday, the Warner Pacific University Knights men's and women's cross country teams broke the ice as they competed in the Buchnell Invitational on a well prepared Middlefield Golf Course in Cottage Grove, Oregon.
 
"It was just fun to be able to get out and finally race today!" said WPU head coach Randy Dalzell. "We have been training all Fall with no chance to compete and that gets real old after a while, so today was very enjoyable and really made all of us appreciate the chance to be there."
 
The Lady Knights were led by freshman Kynzie DeLeon, who finished second in her half of the women's race and 7th overall on the day. She was followed fairly closely by another newcomer, Indya Price, who finished 4th in her half of the race and 12th overall. Lindsay MacKenzie and Andrea Solis were 28th  and  29th overall just seconds apart and Ilean Franco rounded out the team scoring in 39th place for the ladies team. The Knights finished 5th out of 6 teams at the meet.
 
The Knights men were without a full team today, sitting out transfer Chris Garcia, who is nursing a foot injury and JR Segura, who is more of a 400 runner who fills in for cross country when they need him. So, three men ran today, and they were led my freshman Cade Kooch, who was in the lead pack until he got a bad side ache and dropped back considerably, but managed to finish the race in 28th place overall. He was followed by two more freshmen, Rafael Orozco and Juan Gudino, who finished in 33rd and 37th places overall.
 
"We have a couple of other guys to add to this group for next semester when we will run some more cross country meets as well as indoor and outdoor track races, so we are looking forward to seeing how they fill out our team for cross country" said assistant coach Tim Badley.
 
There are no other meets until the end of January for cross country and the indoor track schedule is still somewhat up in the air as schools are still deciding if and when they can host indoor meets.
 
"We are going to keep training hard and getting faster and hope we have a chance to get to some indoor track meets as well as run three to four more cross country meets next semester" said head coach Randy Dalzell. "It's a crazy year for everyone, but the kids are handling it very well and we are moving forward with training and preparing for any competitions that come up for indoor track as well as cross country."
 
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