Congratulations Matt Koenigs – XC Head Coach
At the Men’s & Women’s Northern Region Cross Country Championship Meet that was held Oct. 27th at Lake Paddon in Bellingham, WA, Matt Koenigs was named Norther Region Women’ s Coach of the Year and Northern Region Men’s Co-Coach of the Year. This is Matt’s second year as EvCC’s Head Coach.
Congratulations Matt!
Men and Women take first at Northern Region Championships
“If we’re going to run we’re going to run like hell.” EVCC’s number one men’s runner Nigel Neaves pretty much summed up a year to remember for the Trojans.
The girls ran fast. The guys ran faster. And their coach became king of the league.
On Oct. 27 the EVCC cross country team hosted the Northern Regions Championship in Bellingham where they took the crown in the men’s and women’s races. Following the race head coach Matt Koenigs earned NWAACC’s women’s cross country coach of the year and men’s co coach of the year based off of his teams performance in this race and throughout the season.
“It’s satisfying for sure to win the awards, but my runners are more important to me than an award. I’m not coaching to win awards, I’m here to build a good program with a strong team that can compete year in and year out,” said Koenigs.
The Northern Region Championship was most important to him the weekend of Oct. 27. In 2007 it counted as an actual race and wasn’t determined by default. Last year, the league officials took each teams score from the previous weekends meet, the Bellevue CC Invitational, and used that to determine the winner. So basically, the men won without having to run a race at all. This is where Koenigs wanted something more.
“This year we hosted the race(Northern Region Championships) to exclude outside competition and to make it a real meet that we could compete in,” said Koenigs.
Going into the race the men were favored to win, but the women, on the other hand, were more of the underdog type.
“1989 was the last year worth noting for the girls team where they took third to last in the league,“ said Koenigs. “Even this year they were expected to take third.“
In 2006 the girls team had four runners on their roster, but in cross country five are needed to post a score. In the off-season Koenigs did some recruiting and was able to expand his girls roster to nine. At the Northern Region Championships six of those nine finished in the top ten, giving them a strong victory by over 30 points. Freshman Taneal Detschman won the race with a new meet record of 20:28 seconds.
“The women had a fantastic race. Everyone placed where they should have,” said Neaves, who finished second in the race for the men.
On the men’s side seven out of their 12 runners finished in the top ten, with three being in the top five.
“The whole men’s team really stepped up for this race,” said Koenigs.
“TJ Horn had his best race of the year considering he was fifth on the team all season and got second place(on the team) in this race. It seems like every time he races he pr’s(sets a personal record).”
The men buried the competition with a final score of 22 points, 21 points ahead of second place Whatcom CC. In cross country the lowest score wins.
“We have a potential to place higher at NWAACC. Overall I think our performance was 50 50 for the men at regionals,” said Neaves.
“Winning at regionals isn’t the race that matters, wining at NWAACC is where it truly counts.”
Tomorrow the Trojans head to Clark College at Battleground for the NWAACC championships. Ten community colleges from around the state will be competing including Spokane CC, who is expected to take first place with ease.
According to Koenigs the goal on the men’s side is to take second place and to do so everyone needs to have a strong race. He also feels that Spokane is out of reach this time, but next year his team should give them more of a run.
“Spokane is so good they could compete at a national level and still come out on top,” said Koenigs.
“Our goal is to beat Clark and Lane, Spokane is kind of out of the question. Lane can be beat but it all comes down to me having a smarter race then I did at regionals because I went out too fast,” said Neaves.
Koenigs expects the girls to perform fairly well with a finish of at least third if not better.
“The girls can take third if they stay healthy and no one gets injured because there really isn’t another team that can take them from below the top three,” said Koenigs.
Kas Lisoskie
Clipper Sports