After California Collegiate Athletic Association shut down athletic competition for a year during pandemic, plus several other obstacles that have challenged program in recent seasons, Wildcats return this fall to make 22nd straight appearance at Division 2 men’s national final, seeking another podium finish

By Landon Negri for DyeStat

There’s been so much success for the Chico State cross country programs under the tenure of coach Gary Towne.

If nothing else, the last two years have taught his runners a heavy dose of appreciation.

“It means so much,” senior Matthew Herrera said. “For so long, during the midst of the pandemic, I thought this day would never come. So really, (I’m) just going into this race with a ton of gratitude that I was granted a season and stayed healthy over the course of the pandemic.

“It felt like forever,” he added. “It really has.”

It’s actually been two years, but the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ‘Will they or won’t they?’ approach to competition as the NCAA and the California Collegiate Athletic Association made its way through was trying.

On Saturday, Chico State’s men compete in their 22nd consecutive NCAA Division 2 Cross Country Championships at the Abbey Golf Course in Saint Leo, Fla., near Tampa.

For the women, it will be their 21st consecutive appearance. The women’s 6-kilometer race starts at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time; the men’s 10-kilometer race begins at 9:45 a.m.

In one sense, it will be a triumph just to compete.

Like everyone else, Chico State’s season was wiped out by the pandemic, but unlike everyone, the Wildcats were one of the first programs to deal with losing their season as the CCAA was one of the first conferences to cancel competition last year.

What followed were tough decisions by some runners to stay in the program, particularly if they were seniors and didn’t know in the spring of 2020 when there would be competition again. Nor were they entirely sure whether they would be granted an extra year of college eligibility.

“It’s made people pretty grateful for the opportunity to compete again and be in the championships again,” said Towne, Chico’s head coach for the past 25 years.

“I think that’s probably the overriding theme.

“That window caused a lot of people to try to figure out what running meant to them,” he added, “and whether it was worth it to stick around and try to see it through when there really wasn’t a finish line.”

At the front of that was Herrera, one of the athletes who got an extra year of eligibility from losing the 2020 season. When the pandemic started last year, Herrera had already seen his program through a journey.

During his redshirt season, the nearby Oroville Dam had its main and emergency spillways damaged, sparking flooding fears and forcing the evacuation for more than 180,000 people downstream. Two years later, the 153,000-acre Camp Fire halted life in California’s northern Central Valley, nearly burning all of the nearby town of Paradise and killing 85 people.

The accompanying smoke forced Towne to scramble as the Wildcats prepared for the 2019 Division 2 regionals, which meant going as far as Grass Valley, 60 miles to the south, to practice.

In January 2018, Chico State redshirt freshman runner Brittni Frace and her older sister, Brynn Frace, were killed as a result of a car accident when returning from their home near Paso Robles for the spring semester.

Herrera, who walked on to the Chico State program out of San Mateo Serra High – also the alma mater of Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady and former San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds – was a close friend of Brittni Frace.

“She’s always going to be a part, and her sister, they’re always going to be a part of us personally,” Herrera said. “It’s a lot bigger than running. We of course want to make both of them proud, and make their parents proud, too. We always want to honor and remember them in any way we can.”

The 2021 season has done that, propelled by the Wildcats’ performance two weeks ago on a muddy and rainy day at Ash Creek Preserve in Monmouth, Ore., when they won their fifth consecutive NCAA Division 2 regional and 16th in 19 years.

Freshman Brayden McLaughlin placed third on the 10-kilometer course in 30 minutes, 55.4 seconds, furthering a banner season that saw the Del Oro graduate named CCAA Newcomer of the Year.

Oddly enough, the pandemic actually helped McLaughlin, who said he tore the plantar in his left foot near the beginning of the 2019 season and ultimately redshirted.

McLaughlin said he was “completely off my feet for about 4-5 months,” and on crutches. He was just starting light jogging when the pandemic started. McLaughlin ran some unattached track races last spring, Towne said.

Chico High graduate Charlie Giannini placed seventh in 30:58.5 in what Towne called “the best race of his life.” Herrera was 12th in 31:13.8, senior Rory Abberton was 13th in 31:19.4, and freshman Omar Alvarez-Hernandez was 15th in 31:22.7.

Led by junior Marissa D’Atri (ninth, 21:47.1), Chico State’s women finished third at the regional behind Simon Fraser and Stanislaus State.

Junior Katie Hawley was 20th in 22:04.2, sophomore Hannah Ryan was 25th in 22:11.3 and sophomore Gracie Dupuis was 31st in 22:24.2 for the Wildcats.

Ranked No. 7 in the nation, Chico State’s men won in a landslide with 47 points, ahead of second-place Fresno Pacific (109) and third-place Cal Poly Pomona (138).

“COVID was really a shock,” McLaughlin said. “It was tough for us. We lost a lot of talented guys and girls on both sides of the team. It just shows how Gary works as a coach and how great he is, and how good of a team atmosphere we have.”

And so, after two long years, Chico State is back on track again, thinking more about grasping what would be the program’s first national title and less about yet another hurdle to cross.

Two years ago, the men finished third nationally and the women placed seventh. It marked the third time the men’s team took third at the championship meet, along with 2005 and 2008.

“Our mindset is when we run our best, there is no one in the country we can’t compete with,” Herrera said. “We believe in ourselves individually, and I believe in every guy and woman on the team. And they believe in themselves. We believe in (Towne) and that he’s the best to ever do it.

“I have no reason to believe why we can’t compete with every school in the country on Saturday.”

Chico State’s men finished fourth in 2016 at the last Division 2 national final held at the Abbey Golf Course, one of three podium finishes for the Wildcats in the past decade.

“It’s an exciting time,” McLaughlin said. “Even though we’re all really young, we’re all really excited and ready for this weekend to see what we can do.”