Skoog lands on 1st team at WAC meet

Saturday, October 29

Nacogdoches, Texas

6 a.m.

Grand Canyon

WAC Championships

10/29/2022 10:54:00 AM | Cross Country

Men's Results Women's Results Photo Gallery

Women finish 5th; men finish 6th of 13 WAC schools

By: Josh Hauser

NACOGDOCHES, Texas — The Grand Canyon cross country teams competed at the WAC Championships at Pecan Acres Park on Saturday morning.

The GCU women's team finished in fifth place out of 13 conference schools, while the Lopes men's team checked in at sixth place.

GCU sophomore Joseph Skoog provided the day's highlight, finishing in 10th place to earn the final spot on the All-WAC first team. The Mill Creek, Washington, native ran the 8,000-meter race in 23 minutes, 43.9 seconds.

"Like most conference championships, there will be some good moments and some tough ones," first-year Lopes head coach Paul Limpf said. "Joseph Skoog was the highlight on the course for us today, finishing first-team all-conference. Joseph has been a leader for us all year, and I could not be more happy for him. He had a few moments in the race where he was fading a bit but fought back to earn a top-10 finish and another personal best."

On the women's side, graduate Jodie Judd led GCU in finishing 26th with a 21:29.4 in the 6,000-meter run.

"The women's race got out very fast today and maybe we were not expecting that," Limpf said. "The women were led by Jodie Judd this week. Jodie got out a bit hard but kept her composure and battled back and closed extremely well."

The Lopes men's order of finish was Skoog, graduate Christian Fagerlin (33rd), graduate Blake Bennett (40th), redshirt freshman Jacob Pringle (61st) and junior Brian Martinez (65th).

"Christian Fagerlin ends his WAC cross country career with another top performance," Limpf said. "Breaking 25 minutes in the 8k is always a good goal, and Christian has done it in three straight races. Jacob Pringle also stepped up big today after a bit of a slow start and got a solid 30-second PR."

Behind Judd, the Lopes women finished in the order of junior Katie Hooten (29th), sophomore Stefana Purkovic (34th), junior Brooke Skoog (36th) and sophomore Abby Scherer (37th).

"Katie Hooten had another consistent and solid race for us a couple of places behind Jodie," Limpf said. "Stefana Purkovic had her best race of the season at the right time, which was great to see. She fought hard all race and kept moving up. I'm super proud of Brooke Skoog. Less than a year ago, she had a child and today she was in our top five. She's gotten better with each race and it's been fun to watch."

The women's team improved on a seventh-place finish from a year ago in moving up to fifth in a larger conference.

"Although today might not have been our day, I could not be more proud of the way this team has improved all year," Limpf said. "We still have plenty of races ahead of us and we will learn from this experience and grow together."

Select members of GCU's teams will head to the NCAA West Regionals in Seattle, Washington, in two weeks.