Brooks: Buffs Join 'Conference Of Champions' - Twice - University of Colorado Athletics

LITCHFIELD PARK, Ariz. - Winning a Pac-12 championship hasn't been so important at Colorado this fall as merely winning a Pac-12 competition. The way it's gone in football, volleyball and soccer, placing a champ among the "Conference of Champions" any time soon seemed unlikely for CU.

That changed Saturday . . . twice.

How do you win a Pac-12 championship? The more pressing question is how to win a pair, back-to-back within about 60 minutes of each other, on the same morning in the Arizona desert.

For CU cross country coach Mark Wetmore, the answer is as straightforward as the ribbon of interstate that winds out of Phoenix toward L.A. This was Wetmore's advice to his men's and women's teams on the eve of Saturday's inaugural Pac-12 championships on the Wigwam Golf Course: "We don't have pep talks, any rah-rah. We just stick to business. All I say is double-knot your shoes and stick to your plan."

Added men's runner Andrew Wacker: "He's a real straight shooter when it comes to what we're doing. We were here to run fast, to let our feet do the talking and that's it. It's pretty simple; running is pretty simple."

Both Buffaloes teams might have triple-knotted their shoes, and they most definitely stuck to Wetmore's simple plan. If the guy with the ponytail and hard-as-flint work ethic isn't into Rockne-type speeches, he's into championships. That "Conference of Champions" slogan the Pac-12 likes to tout in its promotional material?

Put a couple down for CU, and put them down as being - in the words of athletic director Mike Bohn - "just what the doctor ordered."

"Paging Drs. Wetmore, Heather Burroughs and Billy Nelson . . ."

CU athletics wasn't on life support before Saturday in the initial Pac-12 season, but let's just say that round-the-clock monitoring was in order. Football, volleyball and soccer had accounted for one win (that coming in soccer) and Bohn was wondering when a corner might be turned. Luckily, Wetmore's, Burrough's and Nelson's groups took up the chase at the perfect time, with their men's and women's teams placing three finishers each in the top ten of their races and winning both events.

Bohn was elated enough after the men's title, which was won first. He called it "an historic event . . . I salute Mark and these young men for bringing the heart of a buffalo to the desert and competing against the nation's best and representing this program and institution in such a first-class manner."

About an hour later, with the women's championship also in hand, his elation had climbed by several degrees in the glare of the bright desert sun.

"Both of these squads really came in here with the eye of the tiger," he said. "As everybody knows, it's been a tough fall in our new league. But for (Wetmore) and his staff and those athletes to come in and compete with incredible focus is very, very inspiring.

"(They) came in with incredible resolve and a resiliency to really compete. In the first conference championship, to have them both win - it's historic, it's special and I couldn't be prouder to be associated with the young men and women that compete for us and the coaching staff that made it happen."

It happened because both Buffs squads ran hard, ran smart and got stellar performances from their marquee runners and enough performance upgrades from their teammates to pull off CU's 13th double cross country conference championship - 12 of them under Wetmore.

Richard Medina (22:54), Wacker (23:24) and Joseph Bosshard (23:30) finished third, sixth and ninth, respectively, in the men's race. Shalaya Kipp (19:54), Emma Coburn (19:55) and Lara Darco (20:18) finished fourth, fifth and ninth, respectively, in the women's race. For Bosshard and Coburn, it was their first cross country races of the season, both needing rest after going through grueling competition for most of the past year.

When the men's team had become Pac-12 champs, the women's team accepted the instant replay challenge. "We had warmed up enough to watch them race and got the chills; we were so excited for them," Kipp said. "I think having them win, the mood was just lightened. We got a perspective of what this meet's about. You can get nervous and anxious and drag with the pain, but watching the men you really just understood what the occasion was and how special it could be if we did win. It was another kick of motivation."

The men also got a 13th place finish from Christian Thompson (23:37) and a No. 15 finish from Ammar Moussa - the Buffs' No. 5 runner. Moussa's performance, said Wetmore, was key, while Medina's effort was about what was expected.

Said Wetmore: "It was a good race for him. He tends to be conservative, which I like. So he had a lot of ground to make up on some of those guys. But the guy in front of him and the winner of the race (Arizona's Lawi Lalang at 22:37) has just astounding personal bests and is one of the strong favorites - maybe the favorite - to win the NCAA. And the runner in second is about a 12-time NCAA All-American. Richard was in the middle of some very, very, very good runners. So was Andy Wacker.

"Richard has had a great year for a guy who redshirted last year, but he's very talented, focused, mature - everything you look for in a great runner."

Wetmore had concerns about his teams leaving cold (19 degrees), snowy Boulder for a hotter, more arid climate, where Saturday morning's temperature hovered in the low 70s for the start of the men's race and inched upwards for the women's event.

"So we knew that we had to be a little careful in these conditions," he said. "The (plan) was the same as the men, but an hour later. We had no experience with this heat, so we didn't want to get into trouble early."

The plan, said Medina, wasn't so much to "go out slower" as "to just race smarter" on what was a flatter course than the Buffs usually hoof. "We realized that (the heat being a factor) in the last half of the race; it wasn't really a factor in the first half. You really start feeling it after the 4k, 5k mark. You start noticing that other guys are feeling it, too. So that's motivation as well."

Strategically, Wetmore's personal plan was to play it cool in the heat: "I'm getting too old to run across the course and yell stupid stuff. Luckily I didn't yell anything stupid and they followed the plan we wrote ahead of time."

His dual plan for both teams was to start the race smartly - just as Medina routinely does - and push when push was needed. Medina, said Wacker, ran a heady race: "He definitely did . . . there are not many people in the country that can go out and be five or ten seconds behind some of the best guys in the nation and just slowly bring them in. That's what Richard did today; it was just incredible."

On the women's side, incredible performances came from Kipp and Coburn, whom Wetmore said had "a wonderful run . . . she exceeded our aspirations." But those might have been expected; the surprisingly incredible efforts were turned in by CU's third, fourth and fifth runners - Darco, Baptista and Cumming, respectively.

The trio, said Wetmore, made the difference, and of Darco, he added, "Google her and find a cross country result in five years. So for her to be ninth today . . . I think she was watching soap operas a year ago. It was an amazing run for her; she worked so hard. And then the freshman Rachel Baptista, she struggled a little at the pre-nationals and then just ran beautifully today. Then Katie (Cumming) has been with us a long time and this was her best run. Shayala and Emma were sort of 'knows,' but it's still third, fourth and fifth (Darco, Baptista and Cumming) that won the race for us."

Coburn said she and Kipp "played off each other really well. When one of us was dying, the other would come along and encourage them to go faster . . . we're so excited; coming in we thought we had a chance if we had a great day and our third, fourth and fifth scorers really rose to the occasion and raced amazingly well."

The CU runners and their coach realized the historic significance of winning conference championships in Year 1 of membership in a new league - especially one as difficult in their sport as the Pac-12.

Said Wetmore of competing in the Big 12: "We usually figured a bad day and we're second. But coming here, you could have a bad day and be fifth or sixth. That's the big difference."

Added Wacker: "With a conference that has a history like this - like the Pac-10 did - and having the greatest competitors in the nation, with (most) of the teams ranked, it just means an incredible amount to be able to compete with the best, do our best and show them what we've got."

What the Buffs have now is a pair of Pac-12 titles.

"We like to be the conference champs, we like it a little better when we're new to the conference and we like it a little better when we're ranked 16th (women) and sixth (men)," Wetmore said. "So this was a fun one."

It was also a desperately needed one. In the Conference of Champions, the Buffs now can say they belong - and offer proof.

Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU