Strong Dellinger Invitational Kickstarts Big Weekend In Eugene

The University of Oregon is calling it the “Mighty Big Week” surrounding its athletic programs, and rightfully so.

With the school hosting ESPN’s “College Gameday” early Saturday morning in anticipation of Oregon’s home game against No. 2 Ohio State at Autzen Stadium, the Oregon men’s and women’s cross country teams will kick off the weekend festivities with an appetizing event of their own: the Bill Dellinger Invitational.

The Ducks are set to take on a pair of top 10 opponents at Pine Ridge Golf Club on Friday in Springfield, Ore., with the No. 22-ranked men’s team racing the No. 2 BYU men at 11:15 a.m., followed by the No. 12-ranked women’s team facing the No. 6 Utah women at noon.

From The USTFCCCA InfoZone: Meets & Results
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The men will contest an 8-kilometer race; the women will race 6k.

The Oregon men return home following an outing at the Cowboy Jamboree on September 28 in Stillwater, Okla. where the Ducks finished third as a team behind Simeon Birnbaum earning a top-20 individual finish in 14th.

Birnbaum, Jeffery Rogers, Tayson Echohawk and Aiden Smith are expected to be on the start line for the Ducks, as well as Elliott Cook making his season debut after an All-American outdoor campaign, where the senior finished second in the 1500-meter final at the NCAA DI Outdoor Track and Field Championships. 

NCAA outdoor semifinalists Rheinhardt Harrison and Tomas Palfrey, 2023 Bill Dellinger runner-up Quincy Norman, Matthew Erickson and Connor Burns are also expected to make their 8k season debuts.

The BYU men, who return to the Bill Dellinger Invitational for the first time since 2019, enter Friday’s race off a dominating team effort at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational on Sept. 27, with all five scorers Casey Clinger, Joey Nokes, Creed Thompson, Aidan Troutner and James Corrigan entered to race.

Freshman Berkley Nance, who won the “B” race at Nuttycombe, is entered for BYU, along with Jacob and Garrett Stanford and Lucas Bons. 

BYU was second as a team at the 2019 Bill Dellinger Invitational, falling to Oregon 54-60 despite Conner Mantz picking up the individual win.

No. 25 Portland is the only other ranked DI team in the field, but will hold out Matt Strangio.

Gonzaga and Montana State are both looking for better outings than they produced at Nuttycombe, with the Zags finishing 17th and the Bobcats finishing 18th. 

Wil Smith and Bryce Cerkowniak of Gonzaga and Ben Perrin, Levi Taylor and Rob McManus of Montana State are among notable entries from those schools.

Salt Lake Community College, No. 2 in the NJCAA DI rankings, features four-time NJCAA national champion JaQuavious Harris, who is expected to be in the front individual pack. Harris won the Cougar Challenge on Sept. 28 in San Marcos, Calif., winning by 18 seconds.

UC Riverside’s Joshua Mendoza and Ashraf Abdelmagid and Cal State Fullerton’s Marco Perez are some other notable individuals expected to be on the start line.

The Oregon women face a tall order themselves in a rising Utah Utes team that recently elevated to No. 6 in the latest National Coaches’ Poll following their second-place team run at Nuttycombe.

Led by Erin Vringer, who was sixth individually, the Utah women were 29 points shy of No. 3 Washington in the team race but took home positive feelings from what they were able to put together in Madison.

“I think we’re really ready to come out and just see where we’re at,” Vringer said. “I think we’re all really happy and it’s just the start of our season, so we’re excited to see what happens later down the road.”

The Utes figure to have cross country All-Americans McKaylie Caesar and Annastasia Peters, Katarzyna Nowakowska, Morgan Jensen, Marika Couture, Lindsey Peters and Emily Chaston be alongside Vringer at Friday’s invite.

Oregon, ninth at Nuttycombe, expects to run Maddy Elmore for the first time this season following a breakout junior year. 

The Eugene native, who went to high school two miles away from Hayward Field, earned All-American honors during the indoor season and broke a 39-year-old school record in the 5000 during the outdoor season, running 15 minutes, 15.79 seconds at the Stanford Invitational on March 29.

Nuttycombe participants Wilman Nielson, Anika Thompson, Charlotte Sinke, Ali Ince, Samantha McDonnell, Ella Thorsett, Kendall Martin and Harper McClain are expected to toe the start line for the Ducks after racing in Wisconsin two weekends ago. 

Oregon State and UC Irvine are another pair of teams expected to have their presence out front with Utah and Oregon.

The Beavers will be led by Kate Laurent, who opened her season with a third-place finish at the Pre’s Trail Run on Sept. 6 and recently finished 28th at Nuttycombe.

The Anteaters will feature the top individual entry in Anna Vogtmann, coming off a 19:58.2 6k effort at the UCR Cross Country Invitational on Sept. 21.

Collete Lowengrub of UC Riverside, Laurie Murphy of Weber State and Claire Nelson of Nevada are three more entries with top-five times in the field expected to race.