Chico State came into San Diego on Saturday and did what they have done all year, win. The Triton Classic was no match for the men and women of Chico State who both placed first in their respective events. This is the fourth time in four events the men have placed first and the first time in four events that the women have placed first.
Even without two of their top runners, 2017 All-American Karlie Garcia and also Haley Boynton, the women showed their resilience and placed first after a pair of fifth-place finishes in their previous 6k competitions.
Scoring for Chico State were third place finisher Alexandria Tucker (22:21.3), fifth place finisher Kayden Carpenter (22:28.0), seventh place finisher Nora Pizzella (22:31.5), ninth place finisher Desirae Jones (22:44.6) and Nadine Dubon stopped the scoring in 19th place.
“This course was tougher than we are used to which worked in our favor. We are a team full of hard working, strong, female athletes,” Carpenter said. “We’ve always referred to ourselves as a ‘second-half team’ which means our strength is prevalent in the second half of the race and the second half of the season.”
The Wildcat men had the same results in their 8k as they have all season; Domination of their competition and a first-place finish. Nine out of the top ten finishers were all Chico State athletes.
Leading the scoring for Chico state was Wyatt Baxter (25:34.9) who finished first overall, Eddie King (25:36.0) finished second, Jason Intravaia (25:38.0) in third, Teddy Kassa (25:38.4) in fourth and Jack Johnson (25:41.8) finished the scoring in fifth.
“Meet was a very easy win, just restating our dominance. 800m in, I went long around a turn and sat myself in 20th place on purpose,” Intravaia said. “Why on earth would you move to the back of a race? I want to practice moving up gradually; I have to practice the mentality of a 10k cross-country race, every mile picking up more momentum.”
Other top ten finishers for Chico State were Jack Emanuel who finished sixth, Daniel Harrigan-Cota in seventh, Jhavahn Holston in eighth and Zachary Chamberlain in tenth. With this being the last race before the postseason, Chico State could not have gone into the postseason with more of a bang than a parade of Chico red across the finish line.
Chico cross-country looks to keep their California Collegiate Athletic Association championship streaks alive on Saturday, Nov. 3 in San Bernardino.
Ricardo Tovar can be reached at [email protected] or @rtovarg13 on Twitter.
