The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Mountaineer magic
Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) runners of the year Lauren Kleppin and Tyler Pennel led their respective Western State College cross country teams to a sweep of the RMAC Championships on Saturday, October 22 at the Willis Case Golf Course in northwest Denver.
It’s the first individual sweep by Mountaineers since 1995 and the first team sweep since 2001. Coach Jennifer Michel earned RMAC Coach of the Year honors for both the men’s and women’s performances.
Kleppin won her fourth race of the season by a 16-second margin and led four other Mountaineers who finished in the top eight of the overall results. She became the first Western State woman to win the conference title since Esther Komen won the 2006 championship and the fifth individual Mountaineer in program history (Elva Dryer won back-to-back titles in 1993-94).
Sarah Lyle, Julianne Payton, Sophie McNeeley and Kristen Meadors finished fifth through eighth, respectively, as Lyle, Payton and McNeeley earned First Team All-RMAC honors. Meadors earned a spot on the second team as Western State repeated as conference champions and earned its seventh team championship.
Pennel’s championship was the first for the Mountaineer men since 2004 and the tenth in program history.
The preseason runner of the year won by an 11-second margin and led two other Mountaineers who earned all-conference first team honors. Ryan Haebe, last season’s RMAC Freshman of the Year, finished fourth ahead of fifth-place Gabe Proctor.
David Goodman and Trevor Blackman earned second team honors and rounded out the scoring runners with places of eighth and tenth, respectively. Western State finished with a three-point margin over top-ranked Adams State and ended a six-year winning streak by the Grizzlies at the conference championships. The title was the 12th for the Mountaineers in program history and the first since 2004.
Michel won her second conference women’s Coach of the Year honor, and the first of her coaching career for the men’s team.
The Mountaineers will return to Denver in two weeks for the NCAA Division II Central Region Championships hosted by Metro State at Washington Park. The race will be the qualifying race for the national championships scheduled for November 19 in Spokane, Washington.
