Angotti named all-conference at WAC Championships

Friday, October 27

Abilene, Texas

Grand Canyon

WAC Championships

Photo by: Nathan Peters

10/27/2023 9:46:00 AM | Cross Country

Women finish in top half of field in Abilene, men take 7th

By: Nathan Peters

ABILENE, Texas — The Grand Canyon women's cross country team took fifth while the Lopes men finished sevent at the 11-team WAC Championships on Friday morning.

"Overall, it was a frustrating day for the guys," GCU head coach Paul Limpf said after the race at Zoe Park in Abilene. "Credit does have to be given to Cannon Angotti. I thought he ran a tough race. This conference is not easy, and to make the all-conference team is a great accomplishment."

Angotti, a redshirt sophomore, ran a time of 24 minutes 41.4 seconds to place 19th out of 88 runners.

"I also thought Jacob Pringle and Emmanuel Corral both had good races and improved from last year," Limpf said.

Pringle, a graduate student, returned to the WAC Championship race for the final time and went out by improving 28 spots in the finish list for the Lopes (33rd).

Corral, a Tucson native, ran a time of 25:50.4 to place 49th in his first WAC Championships appearance with the Lopes.

"We just were too far back and below our standards that we have set for ourselves," Limpf said. "We will need to regroup and find that missing piece so that we can be competitive moving forward."

The GCU women's top finisher was junior Abby Scherer again. Scherer improved 15 spots from her finish last year at WAC to place 22nd with a time of 21:53.9.

"I thought the women had a great overall day," Limpf said. "It was quite an interesting race as it was spread out early, which made gaining points and moving up as a team slightly difficult."

Sophomore Kaitlyn Kaye was the second finisher for GCU, coming in right behind Scherer at 23rd with a time of 21:54.3.

"Abby and Kaitlyn worked extremely well together throughout the race and just missed out on all-conference," Limpf said. "Right behind them, Gretchen Kuffel had her best race in a Lopes uniform."

Kuffel, a junior transfer from Fort Hays State and an Arizona native, ran 22:13.9 to come in at 28th out of 88 conference runners.

Hana Hall (33) and Becca Taylor (41) rounded out the scoring for the Lopes women.

"We will look forward to building off of this performance and continuing to grow as a team," Limpf said.

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

Results from Friday can be found here.