UW Cross Country - Pack Running

BY BOB SHERWIN • CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Andy Powell, the fourth-year coach of the Washington Huskies’ men’s cross country team, has been around long enough to know when his runners, collectively, are on the verge of optimum performance.

Generally, it’s around the time when he’s not around. As he points out, “when I find myself doing less and less coaching, then I know I have a good team, when they’re showing up on time and figuring out all the little things they have to do.”

This season, Powell has a good team. The school couldn’t ask any less from him. “I think we’re ranked 13th in the country now. (But) we’re definitely a top 10 team,” Powell said. “I think we can be really good. It’s a matter of staying healthy and improving each meet.”

Powell understands the self-starting qualities of distance runners. He was one once, among the best 1,500 meters and 5,000 meters runners in the nation coming out of high school in Massachusetts then competing for Stanford.

He knows what it takes to succeed and what it takes out of you, running around 100 miles a week virtually year-round. What Powell tries to provide is a winning culture as well as stressing how much better they can be when they run together. “If you want to break the four-minute mile, you can do it yourself, but you run a lot faster when you have someone helping you along,” Powell said. “Doing things together carries you a lot farther.” Better together has been Powell’s style since he began coaching for Oregon in 2005. He served in various roles for the Ducks, primarily as the distance running coach. In his 13 years there, his list of accomplishments is exhaustive. He had a hand in guiding Ducks’ runners to a combined 34 NCAA titles, 24 Pac-12 titles, and 157 All-America selections. Among the Ducks, many titles were back-to-back NCAA cross country crowns (2007-08), along with another eight top-10 finishes.

The Huskies lured Andy Powell and wife, Director of Track & Field and Women’s Head Coach Maurica Powell, away from Eugene in 2018, and the two immediately established a new team dynamic. In Andy Powell’s first fall on Montlake, the men finished sixth at the 2018 NCAA cross country championships, the school’s best finish in 25 years and second-best ever.

Cross country is unique among NCAA sports. Distance runners compete the entire year, XC in the fall, indoors events during the winter and outdoor events in the spring. Then the exceptional Olympic quality core continues onto summer competitions. “It’s almost like boxing. It (training) takes a ton out of you,” Powell said. “There’s only so many times you can go to the well. So, we err on the side of caution to protect the runners. We try not to over-race them.”

That’s especially true for perhaps their best runner, sophomore Sam Tanner, who will be quite underraced this fall. He competed for New Zealand at the Tokyo Olympic Games and will be rested. He is a onetime collegiate record holder in the 1,500 meters.

Powell is confident that his XC runners can pick up for Tanner’s absence. He has faith in his ‘super seniors,’ Issac Green from Colorado, who set the school record in the 5,000 meters (13:27.26) last year, Tibebu Proctor from Seattle’s Northwest School, who set the school record in the 10,000 meters (28:31.59) that had stood for 20 years, and transfer (from University of British Columbia) Kieran Lumb, whose previous time of 13:24 in the 5,000 meters would be the UW school record.

Another senior, Talon Hull of Utah, has run the sixth fastest 10,000-meter time in school history.

The Huskies also have promising young runners coming up in second-year Leo Daschbach from Arizona, who made the All-Pac-12 Second Team in his first college cross country season, and freshman Nathan Green from Boise, who ran the nation’s fastest high school mile in 2021, going 4:01. Plus, the Huskies have two of the most talented recent local products in Joe Waskom of Mt. Si and Luke Houser of Woodinville. Waskom was the Pac-12 runner-up in the steeplechase last spring, and Houser led the Huskies at the 2020 NCAA Cross Country Championships, placing 51st.

Because of their yearlong workload, cross-country schedules are scant. The Huskies max out at six events this fall, just three before the post-season championships. Both UW’s men’s and women’s teams ran in the Seattle U. Invitational Sept. 1, and both won. The teams then had a two-week training camp at Suncadia, covering hundreds of miles over that bucolic terrain and learning to do ‘the team thing,’ as Powell describes it.

Both teams then have had two more regular meets in October before the Pac-12 Championships Oct. 29 in Salt Lake City. That will be followed by NCAA West Regionals Nov. 12 in Sacramento then the NCAA Championships Nov. 20 in Tallahassee, Fla.

The women’s cross country squad has run like clockwork into the Top-25 at the NCAA Championships now for over twenty years, the past three coming under the guidance of Maurica Powell. Led by returning Pac-12 Champion Haley Herberg and cross country All-American Allie Schadler, the women are aiming at a return to the NCAA Championships and delivering a Top-10 finish.

The partnership between Maurica and Andy is a unique one built through their shared history, first as standout preps in the Massachusetts area, then to teammates running at Stanford, and then as wife and husband both coaching at Oregon starting in 2005. Under Maurica’s 13 seasons at Oregon, the XC women were NCAA runners-up in 2007 and 2008 then won the championship in 2012 and 2016. Like Andy, she developed dozens of elite runners, 20 All-Americans in cross-country and 79 in track. In her first season with the Huskies, her team finished ninth at the 2018 NCAA Championships, the school’s best finish since 2012.

Last season, the Huskies’ women finished 13th at the nationals, which was held in March. Because of COVID restrictions, the January-to-March crosscountry season was contested at the same time as the indoor track season. That was a departure from the usual fall schedule. Following the season, all collegiate cross-country teams then had just a fivemonth break before returning to fall competitions.

All seven UW women qualifiers from last year’s championships return, including senior Allie Schadler, from Tubac, Ariz., who earned All-America honors with a 26th-place finish at the NCAAs, and junior Haley Herberg, from Mission Viejo, Calif., who won the Pac-12 individual title and is a first team All-America in the outdoors 10,000 meters.

The Husky women banked a great early season result with a fourth-place finish at the Notre Dame Invitational on Oct. 1 in South Bend, Ind. There the Huskies outran eight nationally ranked teams, finishing behind only teams rated No. 1, No. 3, and No. 6 nationally. The women worked together well throughout the 5,000-meters, and ended up with just a 15-second spread from one to five at the finish, with Schadler leading the team in a time of 16-minutes, 49-seconds.

Second-year freshman Naomi Smith from Woodway, Wash. was an All-Pac-12 performer in the spring and was the second Husky finisher at Notre Dame. Key new additions to the squad are Julia David-Smith from Issaquah, Wash. and a transfer from Princeton, Sophie Cantine, originally from Seattle’s Lakeside High School.

Along with the men, the women will look to be ready for the three-pronged championship portion of the schedule, starting with the Pac-12 Championships in Salt Lake City on Oct. 29. Then the teams will race at NCAA Regionals on Nov. 12, to try and earn a spot at the NCAA Championships, all the way down in Tallahassee, Fla. On Nov. 20. The women’s team has made the final meet in fourteen-straight seasons, and 22 of the past 24.