Season-long grind culminates at the Cal Pac Championships
California Pacific Conference Cross Country Championships
Woodward Park
Fresno, Calif.
Hosted by UC Merced
Men's 8K: 9:30 a.m.
Men's Results
Men's 8k Race Map
Women's Results
Women's 6k Race Map
Woodward Park Map
NOTE: Start/finish and awards ceremony will take place on the field next to the Mountain View Shelter
(Address: 7775 N. Friant Rd., Fresno, CA 93720)
VALLEJO, Calif. – As was the case last season, Cal Maritime is Fresno bound to compete in the Cal Pac Conference Cross Country Championships, hosted by UC Merced.
The men will open competition on Monday with its 8k race at 9:30 a.m., followed by the women who will tackle the 6k course — the first time the Cal Pac will create a 6k route for the women — at 10:30 a.m.
In addition to crowning individual and team champions, All-Cal Pac First and Second Team members will receive respective honors during a post-meet ceremony that follows each race.
The winning team, and top four finishers not on that winning team, will punch their tickets to the NAIA National Championships, set for November 17 in Vancouver, Washington.
League officials will also unveil its Men's and Women's All-Academic Team honorees and Champions of Character selections at each awards ceremony.
The Keelhaulers will enter this meet with momentum after posting outstanding results in its previous race, the Pacific Union College Invitational.
On a hilly and one of the most challenging courses in the region, Kye McKeown, Andrew Scannell and Caleb Silbernagel owned the podium as the first three runners to cross the line on the men's side.
The women's race featured a second-place result for Anjali Sharma.
Under first-year head coach Francisco Gomez, cadet-athletes from both teams experienced dramatic growth, and improvement in their times throughout the handful of meets that took place since everyone returned to campus in late October.
Through a strategic selection of events, Gomez wanted all runners to experience a variety of courses to best prepare everyone for the league's year-end postseason event.
"Pacific Union's course has a lot of hills and challenging terrain, the change in altitude is more dramatic than other courses we covered this year," said Gomez.
"Other courses are flatter by comparison; those were the meets we ran earlier in the season."
The Cal Pac's upcoming meet in Fresno, at Woodward Park, is a familiar one to many members of each team since this is where league officials staged last year's Cross Country Championships.
Added Gomez, "I am looking forward to returning to this course since this is one I ran when I was in college."