California Baptist University
Pacific West Conference (8K)
Take Five
10/24/2015 5:21:00 PM | Men's Cross Country, Cross Country, Cross Country & Track
"One of the goals in the beginning of the year was to be conference champions again and we did it," said CBU frontman Valentin Robert. "We know that we have to be better in two weeks for the regionals to make it to nationals, though. Everyone is working hard for that."
While they didn't take the individual title for the fourth year in a row, the Lancers placed four runners in the top-10, with nine runners grabbing all-conference nods.
"It was fun to win," said head coach Ben Gall. "Winning five in a row is exciting. There is always pressure coming from that and they felt that. We are very, very young. If you look at the results, it's mostly freshmen and sophomores so there is a little inconsistency there that is more apparent to me than other's, but overall it was good to win and hold the other teams that were coming for us."
Robert and Abdel El-Hajjami were in the front pack from the second the starting gun was fired — by Olympian Ryan Hall — and kept pace with individual champion Valentin Pepiot for most of the race.
Robert, who had come in first in the two other races at the Riverside Cross Country Course, couldn't beat out his French Academy of Art counterpart, but held off another Urban Knight to take second with a time of 24 minutes, 36.54 seconds. The time gives him his second all-conference first-team honor after taking sixth overall last year.
"[Pepiot] is a really good runner, he had a great finish," said Robert. "I just tried to lead the race and if it was a slow race, I would lose to him. I'm still happy because he's French but I will compete for next year to win it."
El-Hajjami also put in a good kick in the last 100 meters to hold off another ArtU runner. The Frenchman took sixth overall — also earning his second first team All-PacWest honor — with a time of 25:05.11.
Just outside the top-seven runners, freshman Ken Kipkorir took eighth, clocking in at 25:19.77, for second team all-conference honors. Tyre Hines wasn't far off the freshman, crossing the finish line at 25:21.41, just .03 seconds behind the runner in front of him.
Bismark Kipkilach led a group of Lancers to round out the all-conference second-team honors as CBU took places 12 through 14. Kipkilach finished in 25:28.00, while Jayden Emerson took 13th with a time of 25:29.99 and Dennis Messmer followed at 14 in 25:31.11.
While they didn't contribute to CBU's 38 team points — only the first seven runners do — Anthony Lozano and William Ernst each grabbed all-conference recognition. They displaced other runners, helping extend the gap as the team runner-ups were 25 points off the Lancers (Academy of Art, 63). Lozano clocked in at 25:33.32, while Ernst finished the race in 25:36.24.
"Each battle is important for sure, we are always telling them to fight till the end," said Gall. "It made a difference here, not in terms of winning the meet like it did last year, but it certainly earned some athletes all-conference honors such as William Ernst moving 22 to 19th and that will help us moving forward."
The Lancers look to build on this momentum as they head to the NCAA Division II West Region Championship Meet on Nov. 7 in Monmouth, Ore.
"We've made it to the NCAA national championships the last two years, and we'd like to do it again," said Gall. "It's a little bit harder this year, with only four teams of the West Region advancing to the national meet from the regional meet, so we have our work cut out for us. We have two weeks to do that and have a lot of work to get there."
RESULTS
Players Mentioned
