Montana State University
Big Sky Conference Championships
Big Sky Championships in Pocatello Up Next for Bobcats
10/30/2024 12:20:00 PM | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country
Montana State cross country heads to the conference meet on Friday
BOZEMAN, Mont. - The 2024 Big Sky Conference Cross Country Championships await Montana State this Friday, as the Cats travel to Pocatello, Idaho, for the conference meet hosted by Idaho State at Riverside Golf Course.
The men's eight-kilometer race begins at 11 a.m. MT, while the women's five-kilometer race begins at 12 p.m. MT.
For the second time in Big Sky history, the conference meet will be streamed on ESPN+. Live results will be carried here.
The Big Sky Championships return to Pocatello after being hosted there in 1968, 1971, 1981, 2002 and 2011.
The Montana State men's last conference title came in the snow in Pocatello in 2002, led by a talented runner named Casey Jermyn, who was the men's individual champion, and his teammate Lyle Weese (5th). In 1981, Montana State's Steve Bishop captured the individual title in Pocatello.
"We'll be on a golf course instead a really hilly, challenging course that we've run at in Pocatello in the past," Weese said. "Our team seems to really like competing in Pocatello—we've been there for indoor championships, outdoor championships, and some meets throughout the years. I think it's a place that we're pretty familiar with and has some similarities to the Bozeman area, so I think we're excited to go there and compete for a conference championship up against some conference foes."
Last season at the conference championships in Missoula, Montana State's men and women each finished second at the same Big Sky meet for the first time since 1992.
The Bobcat men have placed runner-up each of the past two seasons and have not finished lower than fourth at each of the last six conference championship meets, with third-place results coming in 2019 and 2021.
The Bobcat women finished second last season, their first runner-up placement since 2017 and just the second time since 1999 they had finished second at the Big Sky Championships.
"We're coming off the Dellinger meet where our women's team ran really well," Weese said. "I think the women's team can take a lot of confidence from that, having gone up against high-level teams and really performing well. Some keys will be the standard things—we need those that have been running well for us to keep doing that, and then in cross country it's always important to have 4-5-6-7 perform really well. If we have those individuals run well, then our team is going to have a great day."
Montana State's women opened up their season with a home win at the MSU Bobcat Twilight (August 30), then placed sixth out of 17 teams at Minnesota's Griak Invite (September 20), and sixth out of 15 teams their last time out at Oregon's Dellinger Invite (October 11). The great showing in Eugene pushed the Cats up to No. 10 in the latest USTFCCCA Mountain Region rankings, their highest placement of the season.
At the front of the pack has been graduate student Kyla Christopher-Moody, a two-time Big Sky Women's Cross Country Athlete of the Week this season. The 2023 All-Big Sky runner is coming off a tenth-place finish at the Dellinger Invite in Eugene, and will be looking to perform capture all-conference honors again after finishing ninth in Missoula last fall.
Redshirt sophomore Lindsey Paulson has been stellar after missing last cross country season, with top-18 finishes in each of her three meets this year. The Belt native was the first Bobcat across the line with a 15th place result at the Griak Invite, then was the No. 2 MSU runner in Eugene, finishing 18th overall.
Bozeman native Grace Gilbreth placed tenth at last season's Big Sky Championships to earn all-conference honors, and has been the consistent No. 3 for the Cats at each of the past two meets—including with a 25th place finish at the Dellinger Invite.
As Weese alluded to, the Cats' ceiling may well come down to how runners 4-5-6-7 perform: senior Alex Moore, freshman Madi Siana, freshman Niamh Motley, sophomore Annie Kaul, and senior Hannah Perrin will all be in the mix as potential scoring runners.
Montana State's men checked in at No. 18 in the latest FloTrack XC rankings, and were receiving votes in the most recent USTFCCCA Coaches' Poll. The Cats brought back all but one scoring runner from last year's squad that finished a remarkable 13th at the NCAA Championships, and have withstood injuries to two of their top-five in putting together a solid regular season.
With a pair of two-time NCAA Championship scoring runners in Owen Smith and Levi Taylor missing time, the Cats have seen others break through and step up.
"Our lineup isn't going to look like what we had been anticipating when we ran at the Bobcat Twilight meet a couple months ago, but we have a collection of guys that really just step up when there's stuff like injuries that come up," Weese said. "I feel really strongly about our men's team and how we're going to do on Friday. We may not have the lineup that we were anticipating, but we have had gigantic improvement among individuals that will be racing, and they've really stepped up to fill the shoes of really accomplished all-time Bobcat greats."
The Cats are coming off a nail-biting finish at the Dellinger Invite in Eugene, placing fourth in a talent-heavy field and just five points behind meet runner-up Oregon. Ben Perrin earned Big Sky Men's Cross Country Athlete of the Week honors after leading MSU with a 12th place finish, while fellow Kalispell native Sam Ells was right behind in 13th.
"We built some momentum at the Oregon meet and it has seemed to keep building since then," Weese said. "We've had a great three weeks of training and we feel like we're a lot better team than we were even three weeks ago at the Dellinger Invite. We're excited to go compete at conference and see where we stack up. We feel like we've had some individuals that have had a breakthrough and that we can go there and perform really well."
Perrin has earned All-Big Sky honors in three straight seasons, placing sixth at the Big Sky Championships in both 2021 and 2022 before finishing third last year in Missoula. One of the most decorated distance runners in program history, Perrin is one of just five Bobcats to earn all-conference accolades in three seasons. Another top-ten finish in Pocatello would make the Kalispell product a four-time all-conference honoree and put him in exclusive company—joining only Steve Bishop (1977-1981) and Duncan Hamilton (2019-2022).
Ells, the 2023 Big Sky Freshman of the Year, has emerged as a bona fide star. The Kalispell native opened the season with a win at the MSU Bobcat Twilight and placed 68th at the Wisconsin Nuttycombe Invite before the 13th place result in Eugene his last time out.
Junior Rob McManus, a two-time All-American on the track, has finished anywhere from MSU's No. 1 to No. 3 runner, highlighted by a career-best performance at the prestigious Nuttycombe Invite in Wisconsin, where he placed 38th competing in the most stacked field of any meet in the country this year.
Graduate transfer Will Kelly, a multi-time All-American while at St. Olaf College (Division III) has stepped in as the Cats' No. 4 runner, and placed 29th at the Dellinger Invite.
Sophomore Harvey Cramb has been MSU's consistent final scoring runner as the No. 5, and is someone Weese has sung the praises of in terms of improvement over the last month.
"Conference championships are always so great whether it's track and field or cross country," head coach Lyle Weese said. "You go up against teams that you have competed against over the years and you're familiar with them. There's just such a great team element to these meets so we're really excited to go to another conference championship."
Northern Arizona enters as the favorites on both sides, with the Lumberjack women ranked No. 3 in the country and the Lumberjack men ranked No. 8 in the country. The Lumberjack men have won all but two Big Sky titles dating back to 2007, while the women have won five straight.
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