University Place, WA - Trojan cross country was back in action last weekend, getting an opportunity to preview the NWAC Championship course at the John Payne Invitational.  The meet would be a good test as to how the Trojans stacked up against other NWAC competitors from the Northwest Region beginning with the women's 5k.  It would be a smaller field than the Trojans experienced in their first two meets, so the opportunity was there to focus on running their own race.  Green River College and Olympic College each featured full numbers to score team points along with the Trojans and it was relatively close through the first mile. 

Emma Arceo was one of only five total sophomores in the field with experience running this course and her experience showed as she paced herself well, and set up for a strong finish of 20:56.8 which was good enough to win by 8 seconds over the second place finisher from Green River.  The Gators proceeded to finish 3rd and 5th, but a solid EvCC grouping of 4th, 7th, 8th, and 10th place finishes was enough to secure the team win by 7 points.  Freshman Angelina Pamatian looked good in her first collegiate 5k distance running 21:52.4.  Two other freshman Jessica Henry and Isabelle Gutierrez finished 8th and 9th overall followed by Elizabeth Weatherhogge to finish out the team scoring in 11th place.  Cassandra Smith was just five seconds behind Weatherhogge, and served to displace 8 other runners in the team scoring.  

On the men's side, freshman Yahir Marban set a new collegiate PR by an impressive 48 seconds and finished third overall, second among NWAC competitors.  Another freshman, Blake Wayman was one minute behind Yahir, also setting a new PR by 30 seconds.  Lone sophomore Vitalii Shvets was the next Trojan finisher and was followed by Adrian Vigil and Moses Martin who PR'd by one minute and eleven seconds.  

The Trojans will have one more race to prepare for the Northwest Regional Championship race and will travel to Linfield college on October 14th.