Prouse wins Washington Invitational to lead Huskies to team title...
SEATTLE—The University of Washington’s Charlotte Prouse (left/photo by Paul Merca) took command early and never looked back as she easily won the women’s 6k race Saturday morning at Jefferson Park Golf Course to lead the #12 ranked Huskies to the Washington Invitational team title.
Prouse, the Canadian internationalist, who set the North American U-20 record in the steeplechase this summer at the IAAF World Under-20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, took the lead from the start, and began pulling away from the field after the 1000-meter mark,winning in a time of 19:37. six seconds up on Oregon freshman and Gatorade national high school cross country runner of 2015 Katie Rainsberger.
NCAA 1500m qualifier Amy-Eloise Neale closed well over the last kilometer to take third in 19:48, just ahead of Harvard’s Courtney Smith, who had the same time.
Lindbergh HS alum Sarah Reiter of Eastern Washington was sixth in 20:07, with a trio of Huskies—Kaitlyn Neal (20:11), Nikki Zielinski (20:20) and Anna Maxwell (20:20) taking the next three spots to secure the team title for the Huskies, who had a 1-5 team split of 57 seconds.
The Huskies had the low score of 24 points, beating Oregon’s 57 points.
Harvard was third with 78 points.
Washington State was sixth with 174 points, led by Devon Bortfeld’s 15th place finish in 20:32, while Eastern Washington was seventh with 178.
Seattle University was ninth in the nine-team field with a score of 251 points, led by Olivia Stein’s 53rd place finish in 21:49.
In the men’s 8k race, defending Pac-12 and 3-time harrier champ Edward Cheserek (left/photo by Paul Merca) was content to let Washington’s Colby Gilbert do the front-running in his season debut, before he dropped the hammer on the field on the final lap, cruising to a time of 23:07, just short of the course record of 23:00 set by Villanova’s Patrick Tiernan two years ago at this meet.
Gilbert, along with fellow Huskies Andrew Gardner and Johnathan Stevens were up front with Cheserek, Jerrell Mock and Grant Fischer of Colorado State, and the Oregon trio of Sam Prakel, Matthew Maton and Tanner Anderson lurking.
The places changed on the last lap, with Cheserek taking command, and Gilbert trying to hang on to the second spot approaching the final 1000 meters.
Mock was second in 23:26, followed by Prakel in third at 23:28. Maton took fourth in 23:29, just ahead of Gilbert in 23:30.
Oregon’s Anderson was sixth in 23:32, followed by CSU’s Fischer in 23:36.
The Huskies’ Stevens was eighth in 23:38, with a pair of Colorado State runners—Eric Hamer (23:44) and Jefferson Abbey (23:44) rounding out the top 10.
Oregon, ranked #3 in the current USTFCCCA poll, took the team title with 26 points, just ahead of #29 Colorado State’s 39 points. The Ducks had a 1-5 split of 40 seconds, with Colorado State at 23 seconds.
The Huskies were third with 64 points, with a 1-5 split of 45 seconds, and Washington State was fourth with 127 points, led by Jake Finney’s 19th place finish in 24:05.
Eastern Washington was sixth with 192 points, led by Isaac Kitzan’s 36th place finish in 24:45, and SeattleU was seventh in the eight-team field with 195 points, led by Chay Weaver, who was 42nd in 24:51.
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