PROVO, Utah – After a dominating perfect score at home in the Autumn Classic, the BYU men’s cross country team takes to the road to compete in the West Coast Conference Preview in Spokane, Washington, this Saturday.
“Will we be able to have another perfect score? I think that might be a little greedy as I expect there might be one or two good runners in there who might be able to break us up,” BYU head coach Ed Eyestone said. “But I think we can still run a very controlled team race, come away with a victory, and also take some notes about the course layout that we can use at what will be a much more competitive meet at the WCC Championships in a month.”
BYU will be stacked up against WCC foe Gonzaga, along with Idaho, Eastern Washington and a number of junior colleges this weekend.
The Cougars are expected to rely upon Aaron Fletcher, Dallin Farnsworth and Connor McMillan up front. Clayton Young, Mitchell Briggs and Dallin Taylor, who is coming off an injury, will be Eyestone's four through six runners. Nicolas Montanez and Steve Morrin were impressive as unattached runners in the Autumn Classic. Both earned spots and will travel to Spokane for this week’s race. Rounding out the nine runners is sophomore Rory Linkletter, who will be in uniform for the first time as a Cougar.
Eyestone sees this meet as an opportunity to prepare for the season’s biggest races.
“Our main goal is to run a team race and get a chance to look at the Spokane course, which will be the site of the WCC Championships coming up,” Eyestone said.
This week’s race course follows the same route as the WCC Championships in October. Eyestone thinks more than anything else, Saturday will prepare his runners for a showdown with national power Portland and the rest of the conference next month.
The men’s 8,000-meter race will be held at Plante Ferry Park in Spokane starting at 9 a.m. PDT.
Meet results will be posted on the BYU men’s cross country schedule page following the race.