GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.  Mountaineer cross country swept the women's and men's events Saturday at the Gig Leadbetter Maverick Stampede, recording a perfect score in winning the women's 5-kilometer race and nearly matching that perfection in the men's 8K event.

The individual titles were also swept by Western Colorado runners. Katie Doucette captured the women's crown with a time of 17 minutes, 26.2 seconds, and Simon Kelati won the men's title with a 24:04.2 clocking.

THE ESSENTIALS
Event: Gig Leadbetter Maverick Stampede
Host: Colorado Mesa University
Women's 5K team scores: 1 – Western, 15 points, 2 – Colorado Mesa, 46 pts.
Men's 8K team scores: 1 – Western, 18 pts., 2 – Colorado Mesa, 43 pts.
Location: Lincoln Park Golf Course, Grand Junction, Colo.

HOW IT HAPPENED

• The women's race kicked off the morning at Lincoln Park, with a Mountaineer red wave storming across the finish at the end of the 5K course.
• Western's perfect score began with Doucette's victory by 18 seconds over teammate and runner-up Allison Beasley (17:44.6).
• Leah Taylor (18:07.2) in third and Emma Berg (18:14.6) in fourth extended the string, and Emma Kjellsen (18:29.8) completed the sweep.
• Gretchen Slattum was behind Kjellsen by just four seconds, adding another Western runner to the front-end wave.
• Colorado Mesa's first runner across the finish line was Alyssa Britton (18:43.4) in ninth place.
• The Mountaineer men were just one finisher away from matching the women's perfection.
• Kelati won a late-race dual with teammate Albert Hesse (24:05.5) for the top two spots in the final results, edging out third-place finisher Tony Torres (24:08.8) of Mesa.
• The next four finishers were from Western as Ryan Outler (fourth, 24:10.0), Will Johnson (fifth, 24:11.2) and Michael Grabowski (sixth, 24:21.0) earned the final three scoring places for the Mountaineers, followed by Jacob Hernandez (24:28.8) in seventh place.

EXTRA DATA POINTS

• Adding to Western's impressive women's finishing pack were first year's Jayda Nix (fifth overall, 18:21.8) and Lauren Willson (eighth, 18:33.6) who ran unattached but ended with top-10 finishes.
• The spread of Western's five scoring places in the men's race was an almost unheard of 16.8 seconds. The gap between the Mountaineers' women's scoring runners was 63.6 seconds, still an impressive number.
• Kelati's individual title was his second of the season, adding to his win at the Mountaineer/Cowboy Invite on September 17.

LOOKING AHEAD

• The Mountaineers will split for their next meets as one contingent will head to University Place, Washington, for the NCAA D-II Pre-Nationals meet on Sat., Oct. 22, run on the same course – Chambers Creek Regional Park – as will be the national championship race in early December.
• A different group will attend the University of Colorado Colorado Springs Open on Fri., Oct. 21.