Cross Country Prepped For Another Exciting Season

BOULDER — With two rosters full of returning scorers and letterwinners, Colorado Head Cross Country Coach Mark Wetmore has a lot to be excited about entering the 2017 season.

The women's team brings back eight letterwinners, six of who scored in the postseason, and lost just one scorer, two-time All-American Erin Clark, who exhausted her eligibility.

Of those six returning scorers, four earned All-America honors at the 2016 NCAA Championships. Colorado was led by Dani Jones, who is entering her junior year. She paced the Buffs with a 22nd place finish in 2016 after a 49th place finish in 2015.

Following Jones across the finish at NCAAs last season were Kaitlyn Benner (26th), Mackenzie Caldwell (39th), Sage Hurta (40th), Tabor Scholl (42nd) and Makena Morley (43rd). Benner recorded her second straight All-America nod, while it was the first award for Caldwell and Hurta. Scholl and Morely just missed the honor as the top-40 are named to the All-America team. CU placed third overall at the meet, just nine points from first place Oregon and eight from second-place Michigan.

With those six returning, it can only mean good things for the Buffs this season, but Wetmore pointed out that this is an abnormal year in the cross country world.

"This women's team is good enough that on a normal year, they would be the favorite to win the NCAA Championship," he said. "But this an abnormal year and there are some very good teams with strong returning rosters as well. Just within our conference, Oregon is the defending national champion and only lost two runners. Stanford was very high up in the NCAA and was very close behind us in the Pac-12 meet; they have everyone returning and their top runner of the year, who raced injured all of last year, and I'm sure they hope she won't this year. Plus they have a number of excellent new recruits.

"So, Stanford is very good, Oregon is very good, Washington is very good and I haven't even gotten out of our conference. Michigan finished second a year ago; I'm not sure who they return, but they are always really strong and really deep. They are a team like ours that has 12 good runners."

But Wetmore also knows that every Buff coming back is better than where there were a year ago and pointed out that Madie Boreman, who redshirted in 2016, will be racing this fall. She is fresh off a runner-up finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the NCAA Championships last June and is the fourth fastest Buff in CU steeplechase history behind three Olympians, Jenny (Barringer) Simpson, Emma Coburn and Shayala Kipp.

With that much talent on the roster, it's hard to not have high expectations, especially after winning the Pac-12 and NCAA Mountain Region Championships in 2016.

"My aspirations are to win a national championship and a conference championship, but it won't be easy," Wetmore said.

The women have a very talented freshmen class, but it's likely those four won't compete in uniform for the Buffs this season.

"They are all talented and are all going to be very good runners for us down the road," he said. "My preference is to take our time and to develop them slowly. I wouldn't single out any one of them, but with the depth of our veterans, it's highly unlikely we will break out one of our freshmen."

The CU men, like the women, bring back much of the roster from the 2016 team, losing just four-time All-American Ben Saarel, who has exhausted his eligibility. The Buffs return seven letterwinners, including John Dressel, a two-time All-American, and Joe Klecker, who earned his first All-America honor in 2016. Klecker was second behind Saarel for the Buffs at the NCAA meet, finishing 28th overall, while Dressel was right behind at 33rd.

Colorado also returns Ryan Forsyth, Reilly Friedman, Christian Martin and Zach Perrin from the team that placed sixth at NCAAs.

The Buffs redshirted seven freshmen last season and of those seven, six are back this year and will be fighting for a spot on the varsity roster.

"Of those six, some of them could be contributors this year," Wetmore said. "We'll have to see; because although they have been here a year, they are still relatively young. It's hard for a 19-year-old male to race 22 or 23 year-old males. There are a couple of them, but I've got to get them back in town and get some work done under my gaze before I can tell."

Like the women's team, Wetmore's aspirations are very similar for the men.

"What I said about the women is true as well for the men," he said. "The conference is deep. The rosters of Stanford and Oregon are formidable. Washington is always good. Last year UCLA was a surprising team. They've had some staff changes; I'm not sure how that will affect them, but they might need a year or two to get their feet back under them. Nationwide there are many excellent teams. Also in our region, Northern Arizona won the NCAA last year. BYU is very good. Arkansas was ahead of us at the NCAA and have a lot of people back. Our men want to defend their Pac-12 title and they want to contend at the NCAA."

Colorado will open up the season on September 1 at the Colorado State Invitational in Fort Collins, Colo. After that, the Buffs will have almost a month to prepare for the Rocky Mountain Shootout, their only home meet of the season, on Sept. 30.

This year's Pac-12 Championship will be October 27 in Eugene, Ore. The Buffs will be looking to sweep the team titles for the third straight year, but doing so won't be an easy task with the talent in the Pac-12, including a talented pair of Oregon teams.

"Well it's been proven and I don't quite understand why or how, but there is a home course advantage in cross country," Wetmore said. "The reason I say I don't quite understand it is because we don't run our Pac-12 Championship on the normal home course. When we hosted in 2013, we ran it on a brand new course that we had never raced on before. UCLA, Cal, all the recent Pac-12 Championships have been on brand new created courses that were not the home course. But, in the case of Oregon, out in Springfield, they're running on a course that they've run on a few times a year for a few years. So, they'll have an advantage."

CU's men have won all six league titles, while the women have won three since joining the Pac-12 in 2011.

NCAA Mountain Region Championships will be in Logan, Utah, this year on Nov. 10. Then, for the third time in six years, the NCAA Championships will take place in Louisville, Ky. on Nov. 19.

Colorado University Athletics

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Players Mentioned

Kaitlyn Benner

Madie Boreman

Mackenzie Caldwell

Erin Clark

John Dressel

Ryan Forsyth

Reilly Friedman

Sage Hurta

Dani Jones

Joe Klecker

Christian Martin

Makena Morley

Zach Perrin

Ben Saarel

Tabor Scholl

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