Grant Fisher Says He's Ready For A Full 10K Effort

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Grant Fisher might train at temperate Stanford, but news of a possible 1-2 inches of snow overnight did nothing to discourage his outlook on Saturday’s NCAA Division 1 Cross Country Championships.

Fisher is a Michigan native, after all, and has logged plenty of miles on cold, gray days like the kind that hung over Madison, Wisc. Friday.

“It’s a classic Midwest day, something I grew up around, and am back to,” Fisher said at Friday’s news conference.

The senior from Grand Blanc, Mich., is back for his fourth and final crack at an NCAA cross country title and there is more than enough evidence from this fall’s race results that he is ready to break through.

Fisher has placed 17th, fifth and fifth over the past three years.

Last year’s experience at Louisville, Ky. Has surely stayed with him.

Fisher went into the 2017 championships considered a co-favorite with Syracuse’s Justyn Knight, who sprinted away from Northern Arizona duo Matthew Baxter and Tyler Day to win the individual title.

But Fisher admitted that he was looking for a race in which he might be able to relax for a while and then use his blistering kick to dominate at the finish.

It didn’t happen that way. Instead, the surge went early and Fisher let it go too long before responding.

“Last year I wasn’t prepared to go with that strong move and run a hard 10K straight through,” Fisher said. “I think this year I’m a lot more prepared to run a real 10K and I’m excited for it. Last year after the race, I felt like I’d made a bit of a mistake letting guys go that I wanted to be racing at the end.

“I put myself out of it before I had that opportunity.”

Fisher has a proud and distinguished cross country career, of course. He was a two-time Foot Locker champion in high school.

A win Saturday would not be surprising, but it’s not going to come easy.

Two of the guys who beat Fisher last year – Baxter and Day – are back to try and lead Northern Arizona to a third consecutive national championship. Wisconsin's Morgan McDonald is also a contender and could get an emotional boost from running on his home course in front of a throng of Badgers supporters. 

NAU is ranked No. 1 with a lineup that might be its best yet.

“The 2017 team would beat the 2016 team. The 2018 team would beat the 2017 team,” Lumberjacks coach Mike Smith said bluntly. “But only one part of that is physical. The group we have now has made a big jump in (being) calm and (sustaining) concentration.”

BYU is seen as the team mostly likely to be capable of challenging NAU. The lineup has changed a bit as 2017 freshman Casey Clinger left for his LDS mission and Conner Mantz has been plugged in after returning from a mission.

Coach Ed Eyestone said he would like for his team to be loose, have fun and run to its ability after a 2017 experience where the Cougars were pumped up before the race but didn’t perform to expectations.

Portland remains a sleeper as well, with confidence from a program-best runner-up finish in 2017 and a deep lineup with flexibility to give coach Rob Conner options.

On the women’s side, New Mexico is going for its third NCAA title in four years. The Lobos not only have the 2017 individual champion in Ednah Kurgat, but also one of this years’ favorites in sophomore Weini Kelati.

With victories at the NCAA Pre-Nationals and Mountain West Conference Championships, Kelati has shown that she has raised her game since last year’s seventh-place finish.

Boise State’s Allie Ostrander, the two-time NCAA women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase champion, Wisconsin’s Alicia Monson and Oregon’s Jessica Hull are among a group of contenders who could take a stab at the individual title.

Oregon, under first-year head coach Helen Lehman-Winters, Boise State, Arkansas and Colorado all have rosters capable of winning the championship if they fire on all cylinders.