After a great regular season for both the Fort Lewis men’s and women’s cross country teams, the Skyhawks shined at the NCAA Division II cross country national championships.
The men finished 13th, while the women finished 20th.
“The progress that we've made, we've gotten better each year on the women's side,” Fort Lewis coach Sean Jakubowski said. “The men really bought into the program, they bought into the training and me and my assistants, and they just they did everything we asked and they worked extremely hard. So it made the transition really easy and obviously they're reaping the benefits of it.”
Senior Katie Heck led the way for the women, finishing 22nd out of 260 runners who finished the 6,000-meter course in Joplin, Missouri with a time of 20 minutes 31 seconds.
Heck earned All-American honors, as did freshman Linda Weigang. Weigang finished 39th with a personal best time of 20:41.
The men were led by sophomore Eli Smith, who finished 53rd in the 10,000-meter race with a school record time of 30:38. Senior Henry Barth finished 82nd with a personal best time of 30:57.
2023 marked Jakubowski’s first season as the men’s cross country coach and his second as the women’s coach.
Jakubowski said the course was hilly and challenging for the runners. The drop in elevation didn’t help Fort Lewis too much, as other RMAC schools that train at elevation were among the top teams in the country as well.
Before the NCAA championships, the Fort Lewis men’s team finished fourth in the RMAC championships, while the women finished sixth.
“We're slowly chipping away at it,” Jakubowski said. “Last year at our regional meets, the men were 11th and we were 13th in the country this year. So we definitely are climbing the ladder. On the men's side, fourth was one of the highest finishes ever had, last year it was eighth. So we are slowly climbing that ladder. What it comes down to is just consistently training hard year after year after year. Also in recruiting, recruiting the right kids to come in and buy into the program and continue that tradition that we're starting to have.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
