NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The Washington State men's cross country team, ranked No.11 in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA), finished 11th Friday afternoon in the Blue Race at the 62nd Annual Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational at the Burke Golf Course.
 
Junior Chandler Teigen (Anatone, Wash.) led the Cougars with a 19th-place finish in a time of 24 minutes 10.1 seconds on the five-mile course. WSU men's scorers included junior Nathan Wadhwani 38th (24:28.4), freshman Matthew Watkins 68th overall/67th in team scoring (24:49.5), junior Nathan Tadesse 77th/75th (24:55.9), and junior Paul Ryan 91st/85th (25:04.8). Other Cougars racing in the Blue Race included sophomore Justin Janke 100th (25:10.4), redshirt freshman Kennan Schragg 102nd (25:12.1) and senior Michael Williams 121st (25:34.7)
 
The No. 13 Southern Utah men won the Blue Race title among the 21 teams with 72 points. WSU scored 284 points with fellow Pac-12 Conference teams No. 4 Colorado second with 101 and California seventh (184).
 
"The men struggled as a team today as it seemed as though they could not find their 'racing legs' after not competing for a while," WSU Director of Cross Country/Track & Field Wayne Phipps said. "Despite the team struggle and not having everyone in uniform today, we still had two solid individual performances led by Chandler Teigen's strong run and a great race by freshman Matthew Watkins."
 
Junior Vallery Korir (Iten, Kenya) led the Cougars women's team in the 5000m Blue Race with a 15th-place finish in a time of 16:46.4. The WSU women took 14th in the 20-team standings with 356 points. No. 1 Colorado won the women's race with a score of 47. Other Pac-12 schools in the Blue Race included No. 27 Utah, fifth (190), and California seventh (238).
 
Cougars women scorers were senior Devon Bortfeld 31st (17:00.9), junior Josie Brown 100th overall/95th for scoring (17:59.7), freshman Kiyena Beatty 106th/100th (18:03.4), and sophomore Melissa Hruska 124th/115th (18:24.8). Other WSU and their finishes included sophomore Marie Gaudin 135th (18:36.3), sophomore Morgan Lash was 139th (18:41.1), sophomore Desi Stinger 141st (18:50.9), and junior Katherine Dittmann 149th (19:15.1).
 
"The women ran well led by an awesome race by Vallery Korir," Phipps said. "This was a very elite race and for her to finish 13th was very good especially for it being her first race in over a month. She ran about 30 seconds faster this year than last year so it was exciting to see that level of improvement."
 
In the men's Open five-mile race, WSU runners finished fifth through eighth among the 41 runners. Junior Kyler Little was fifth in a time of 25:21.0 followed by junior Reid Muller (25:29.2), sophomore Isaac Wadhwani (25:35.9) and sophomore Cameron Dean (25:43.1).
 
"In the open men's race, I thought our group of four ran very well and put themselves in great positions throughout the race," Phipps said. "The pace was very slow early on but they all closed strongly."
 
The next meets for the WSU cross country teams will be the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational Oct. 13 in Madison, Wis., and the Inland Empire Champions Oct. 14 in Lewiston, Idaho.