University Place, WA - The 2023 Cross Country season culminated with the NWAC Championships at Chambers Creek Regional Park in University Place, WA. This is the third straight season in which the NWAC Championship has been held at this course, which also happens to be the site of the PAC-12 Championships. Last year the race conditions were near perfect with temperatures near 60 degrees, no wind, and the course was firm thanks to little rain in the week leading up to the event. The 2023 Championship would be a different story wind, heavy rain, and a wet course that would prevent many PR's.
The men's 8k race was first with intermittent rain showers and a steady wind. In 2022 the winning time was 24:48.0 with the top 17 finishers breaking the 27 minute mark. This year, the time to win it was 25:55.9 and only 6 runners broke 27 minutes. The race was led by Spokane's Luke Hurd and Lane's RJ Kennedy the whole way, and it would be Hurd to win it. Spokane would go on to place all five scoring runners inside the top 20 to claim the team title. For the Trojans, freshman Yahir Marban led the team and finished 10th overall with a time of 27:26.8. This is the highest individual finish on the men's side for EvCC since 2013 when Mason Nicol finished 4th overall and led the team to the program's 2nd ever NWAC Championship.
Another freshman, Blake Wayman was not too far behind, finishing 14th overall, and only 44 seconds off of his 8k PR. Sophomore Vitalii Shvets was the next Trojan to finish at 40th, and Adrian Vigil and Moses Martin rounded out the team scoring for Everett. Vigil was only 35 seconds off his PR and Moses Martin had perhaps the days best individual performance, just 4 seconds off of his 8k PR. As a team, EvCC finished 7th overall, their best finish in the past three seasons.
By the time the women's 5k started at 12pm, the wind had subsided slightly and the rain stopped, but the course was still very soggy. Last year, 11 runners broke the 20 minute mark, while this year only 4 runners accomplished that feat. One runner however did not seem to be overly affected by the conditions, and Sydnee Boothby of Clark College ran an absolutely dominate race with a time of 17:57.7 and beating the second place runner by 1:35. Boothby's time is a course record for the NWAC Championship at Chambers Creek, and only the 4th time ever that the 18 minute mark has been broken in the women's championship 5k. The last time it happened was back in 2015.
Everett's women ran a strong race, led by sophomore Northwest Region Individual Champion Emma Arceo who finished 17th overall. It was the teams tight grouping that helped to solidify a 4th place team finish, edging out Green River by seven points. Angelina Pamatian was 23rd (26 seconds off of her PR), Jessica Henry was 27th (12 seconds off her PR), Isabelle Gutierrez was 29th (31 seconds off her PR), and Cassandra Smith rounded out the team scoring at 25 seconds off of her PR and finishing 35th overall. Elizabeth Weatherhogge's finish of 39th overall served to displace one of Green River's scoring runners which helped to lock in the 4th place team finish. Fourth is the highest team finish for the women since 2018.
The top times of the year for EvCC belonged to Yahir Marban on the men's side who ran 26:28.8 in the 8k and Emma Arceo who ran 20:22 in the 5k.