MAXIMILIANO ACOSTA / ASST. SPORTS EDITOR

While many stayed up late for the festive Halloween night this past weekend, USD’s cross country teams sent the top seven men and women to compete at The Course, in Spokane Valley, Washington for the 2025 West Coast Conference (WCC) Cross Country Championships. USD joined 11 other universities in the women’s 6K race and nine other programs in the men’s 8K race.

  So far, cross country at USD consists of a four-meet regular season with three postseason opportunities, including the West Coast Conference Championships, and the upcoming NCAA West Regionals building  up  to  the  NCAA National Championships  in Columbia, Mo.

  Prior to participating in the West Coast Conference, both USD teams competed in the UCR Highlander Invite in Riverside. There, 15 Toreros logged personal bests from both the USD women’s and men’s cross-country teams. 

 USD junior Jilli Lange on the women’s cross country team described  how motivating this was    for   her   team  before traveling. 

    “I have never seen our team as prepared as we are this year,” Lange said. “Our team has been blessed with extraordinary depth and talented  girls to add to   our  group this  year  which has  helped our  group improve as a  whole. I can’t wait to showcase  and celebrate our hard work with my team on race day.”  

 With   racing  at  such a competitive level, Lange further explained how she planned on calming  her nerves before the race.

    “To  prepare  for this weekend, I am focusing on calming my mind and visualizing my race,” Lange said. “To help prepare for the cold climate of Spokane, our Coach has us jump in the cold ocean in the mornings after our runs and encourages cold showers as well to help us acclimate despite being in SoCal. In terms of training, all of the work is done; the hay is in the barn so to speak, so just maintenance runs this week.”

  Another interesting aspect of the race that the  runners had to focus on was the WCC’s newly created course, designed specially for cross country. It had open large grass plains with wide corners, where the runners spent their time hustling through the 40 degree weather.   

  USD senior William Gratke expressed  how much he was looking forward to the course.

  “It is a super exciting idea knowing that this course was designed specifically for hosting cross country meets,” Gratke said. “The grass is beautiful and is going to be the perfect place to shoot for our best times of the season.”

 Gratke shared how he worked to  train for this meet.

   “To prepare for WCC’s this weekend we’ve been focusing on getting a ton of sleep while training in the cold weather to make sure that we can perform to the best of our ability,” Gratke said. “The culture of the team has been extremely supportive and uplifting so to see so many of our teammates doing well and performing in the best we have seen   is a very motivating concept.”

  USD flew to the West Coast Conference with motivation and excitement. USD graduate student Jake Colemen filled his role again as an upperclassman by leading the team with a 57th overall in the 8K with a 25:35.3 time, adding the Toreros with 280 points.      

   Unlike most sports, in cross country, the team with the lowest amount of points in the end wins. So the closer you are to the front, the lower the amount of points you receive. Therefore, the team is only as fast as their seventh runner. 

   Gratke is also looking forward to the intense competition that he and his team always deals with whenever they compete in the WCC. 

“It is always exciting to be up against  our rival schools and  have the opportunity to see where we stack up against them,” Gratke said.  Despite these moving accomplishments, the opposition   proved  to  be vigorous. The Torero’s rivals, Gonzaga, prevailed in the top three in both the men’s and women’s races, whereas, only the USD women’s team superseded Pepperdine by a close four minutes.

   The   race concluded with  both USD Torero teams placing ninth. The women’s team scoring summary resulted in a time of 1:53:46. In  comparison, the  top of the table, Washington State, earned a time approximately 12 minutes quicker. On the men’s side, Washington State again placed first,  having  a 16 minute  quicker completion  compared to the Toreros with a 2:12:49 finish.

    The  leading  teams  who were top  of the table last year, according to the Team Scoring Summary Standings were Gonzaga, Portland and Washington State. Although this year, Portland’s  standing was less consistent, and both USD teams had close finishes, Washington State and  Gonzaga  still prevailed. 

Last year, USD’s women’s team placed eighth and the men’s team placed tenth. USD junior Jack Devries commented on how the conference was a step to refine themselves. 

 “Despite the rain and adverse conditions, we pulled together and each performed to the level we needed to to succeed,” Devries said. “We expect this momentum to continue on to regionals where we’re working toward placing higher than last year and to beat our in-conference rivals once again.”

   Many of the placements did not change from last year’s results. The USD Toreros now get to focus on what’s forward to try to improve for the NCAA West  Regionals  that  are to come in Sacramento on Nov. 14, 2025.

WXC takes off at WCC race in Spokane, WA. Photo courtesy of @usdxctf/Instagram