SPOKANE, Wash. — Loyola Marymount women’s cross country team placed tenth at the West Coast Conference Championships on Saturday, Nov. 1, at The Course at Spokane Valley. The WCC Champs marked the course’s inaugural race. The Lions finished tenth over the six-kilometer race, falling only 26 points of seventh place.
2025 WCC Cross Country Championships — Women’s 6K
Team Scores:
1. Washington State — 38
2. Gonzaga — 43
3. Oregon State — 84
4. San Francisco — 95
5. Portland — 157
6. Santa Clara — 188
7. Saint Mary’s — 235
8. Pacific — 236
9. San Diego — 258
10. Loyola Marymount — 261
11. Seattle — 283
12. Pepperdine — 318
“Conference was a tough race for us,” John Pickhaver, assistant coach for the women’s cross country team, said in an interview last week. “It’s very stacked at the front of that conference, so sometimes it’s almost seen as two races, and there’s a spot that we thought we could finish.”
Gonzaga University, Washington State, Oregon State and the University of San Francisco are ranked in the top 15 of the West Region, according to the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association’s poll rankings.
Universities face each other in their regional meet, and the results of the races determine the team layout for the NCAA Cross Country Championships.
Tessa Kline (left) and Rylee Guinn (right) lead a pack of WCC athletes. Credit: @lmulionsxctf, via Instagram.
“We thought we could be seventh, beating some quality teams, and we just didn’t have our greatest day,” Pickhaver said. The course, which is all grass, required the team to wear their spikes for the first time all fall.
“Experienced a little bit of weather, most of the rain held off, but it started coming down a little bit toward the end of the race,” Pickhaver said.
This season was an eventful one for the Lions. The team brought in its first recruiting class since its track program had been cut, alongside a pair of transfers to its 15-person roster. All these new faces suited up for the Lions at their championship meet.
“We’re young, we’re experienced, we’re new,” Pickhaver said. “It’s a combination of everything. But Hayden has been a really good leader by example. She’s focused and dialed in, and people on the team see that.”
Senior Hayden Washington was the first scorer for the crimson and blue, placing 47th in the 109-person race. “Our mentality going into WCCs was just to be brave and also be really gritty,” Washington said in an interview days after the race.
“I feel like those two words were kind of our main focus for this race. So we just tried to really stick to that,” Washington recounted. And the Lions did just that.
Through the 1K split, the team finished in sixth place, with their first and fourth scorers only two seconds apart, and a seven-second gap between scorer one and five.
“Pack running has sort of been a theme for us all season long,” Pickhaver said. “The team has really leveled up collectively.” The team ultimately finished with a gap of one minute, 17 seconds between its first scorer and its fifth.
“It’s really nice being able to see someone you know you train with, and you know you’ll be able to do whatever they can do,” Washington said. So sticking together has been a really main goal for us this year.”
Hayden Washington’s race gear laid out the night before the meet. Credit: Hayden Washington, via The Lion.
Rylee Guinn, who finished 57th and will likely be the team’s top returner next season, was the Lions’ second scorer at WCCs. “I fell a little short of my goal placement-wise, but I finished strong and gave it everything I had, and some days that’s all I can ask for,” Guinn said in an email interview.
Finishing strong was also a major emphasis for the team at WCCs. “The night before the race, we’d chosen a ‘surge point’, a spot on the course where, no matter how much it hurt, the whole team would commit to finding another gear,” Guinn said.
“As I approached that tree right before the final turn, I reminded myself of that promise,” Guinn said, referencing her chosen surge point. “My teammates were right there pushing with me, helping me find that last bit of strength to the finish.”
Cross-country races themselves are still new for some on the team, like Ava Boyd, who finished 60th and scored third. “I walked onto the team last year for cross country season, and before that, I had never run before,” Boyd said. “So this is all very new.”
Her progression in the sport and this season isn’t just all talent and hard work. “Last year I was shocked at the amount of days it took and the time, and the traveling and all of that was just a lot,” she said. “Especially by WCCs last year, I wasn’t mentally there, I wasn’t physically there.”
“This year, I feel so much more prepared, and also just having the team that we have right now is incredible, and it keeps you going,” Boyd added. “All of those girls are my best friends.”
The team, although not projected to advance out of the West Region, has kept their training and focus intentional. “[Head Coach Chloe Curties], myself and the team in general, have this year really put a focus on regionals,” Pickhaver said.
“That is the culmination of the season. It’s not just some bonus race where we show up, it’s how can we continue to improve our ranking in the region,” Pickhaver said. “A lot of recruits, they’ll open up West Regional rankings and see like, okay, I can apply to these schools or reach out to these teams.”
“For us, regionals is just continuing to improve in those rankings, so we can continue to build a strong distance program here,” Pickhaver added.
The conference’s consistent and historic representation and success at the NCAA Cross Country Championship meet has encouraged further intraconference interest and the financial investment needed to grow its cross-country scene.
Pacific University, which usually finishes below the Lions, placed eighth at WCCS. The university has invested and rebuilt its program, adding men’s cross country and track and field in May of this year. And it has begun to sponsor indoor track this upcoming season.
LMU is the only program in the conference that doesn’t offer both track and field and cross country as official Division I women’s sports. At a university where there seem to be no further plans for investment in non-revenue generating sports, the Lions rely on season success as a tangible point of interest for the program’s growth. But this regional meet, in particular, functions as a goodbye to some and possible redemption for all.
“I honestly am just gonna really try to give it my all, especially for this last race,” Washington said. “I’m not even doing it for me. I’m doing it for everybody who’s been with me since I was five years old to now.”Washington doesn’t plan to compete collegiately after she finishes her undergraduate degree.
The ladies also get a chance to colloquially run WCCs back. “In the West region we see so many of the same schools, particularly the ones that we were trying to get at conference, some of which we did, but not all of them, so we’ll have a shot at redemption,” Pickhaver said, looking for the team to bounce back and end the season on a high note.
The Lions will suit up for their season finale at the NCAA West Regional tomorrow at Sacramento’s Haggin Oaks Golf Course.
