Complete Results | Men's Only Results | Women's Only Results

MONMOUTH, Ore. – The Alaska Nanooks men's and women's cross country running teams concluded the 2017 season on Saturday morning at the NCAA West Regional Championships at Ash Creek Preserve in Monmouth. The Alaska men placed 24th overall as a team while the women finished in 25th place in the team rankings.

Individually, sophomore Lukash Platil was the highest finishing Nanook from both teams on the day, as the Thornton, Colorado native placed 96th overall in the men's 10km race while junior Alex Bergholtz placed 98th overall in the women's 6km race.

"We had some great individual performances today but a couple of injuries and illnesses means we didn't set the team score we knew we're capable of for both the men and the women," head coach Nick Crawford said on Saturday. "It was a good finish to our season and a good finish to the collegiate career for our eight senior racing today."

The men combined for 596 points to rank 24th out of 27 teams with Chico State capturing the West Regional Championship title with only 55 points on the day. Fellow Great Northwest Athletic Conference rival Western Oregon's David Ribich was the first place finisher in the men's 10km, posting a time of 29:49.2.

Of the 188 harriers in the men's field, Platil crossed the finish line with a time of 32:26.9, only 2:37.9 behind Richich's time. Platil averaged 3:14.7 per kilometer and was the highest-finishing Nanook at the NCAA West Regionals for the second-straight year.

Platil's efforts were followed by senior Carl Wahlin, who placed 110th overall with a time of 32:44.6 (3:16.5/km) while fellow senior Lyon Kopsack recorded a time of 32:52.5 to place 119th overall. Rounding out the Alaska men's top-five finishers was sophomore Jacob Walsh (33:11.7) and senior Seiji Takagi (33:28.5), who placed 130th and 141st overall, respectively.

"We were pleased that the men moved up a spot among our GNAC rivals in the team score, finishing ahead of Seattle Pacific, who beat us two weeks ago at the conference champinships," Crawford said of his men's team. "The team scoring qas quite close around where our men finished. The way it worked out we actually ran a faster time than the team that finished just in front os us and were quite close to by time with four other teams. Luk led our team again with a strong performance, while Jacob, Carl and Lyon all had good races today, running just behind their 10km personal-best times. Carl and Lyon ran together throughout the race and moved up throughout the second half, which is a great way to end their senior season."

On the women's side, Alaska tallied 702 points to rank 25th among the 30-team field with 209 runners total. Cal Baptist captured the women's West Region title with a team score of 68 but it was in-state rival Alaska Anchorage's Caroline Kurgat who placed first overall individually with a 6km time of 20:26.1.

For the second-straight race, Bergholtz was the highest-finishing Alaska Nanook on the women's team, posting a time of 23:11.0, only 2:45.0 behind Kurgat and averaging a time of 3:51.8 per kilometer. Following Bergholtz was junior transfer Morgan Siebka, who crossed the finish line with a time of 24:01.0.

Rounding out the Alaska top-five finishers was freshman Anja Maijala (24:18.9), senior Kim Fitzgerald (24:24.8) and senior Tatjana Spaic (24:31.5) who placed 153rd, 158th and 164th overall, respectively.

"Overall, our women's team didn't run quite as good of a race as we had two weeks ago at the GNAC Championships but a number of our ladies had great races today," Crawford concluded. "Alex had another strong race and has had a really breakout season. Tatjana had probably the best race of the day for our women's team, setting a personal-best time in the 6km and finishing 5th on our team in scoring."

For more information on the Alaska Nanooks men's and women's Cross Country running teams, follow @AlaskaNanooksXC on Twitter or like the Alaska Nanooks XC team page on Facebook.