Twins Nicole and Katie Dillavou of Pendleton High School have signed letters-of-intent to become part of the Lewis-Clark State College cross country program next season, Warrior coach Mike Collins has announced.
Nicole received a half scholarship to run cross country, while Katie will be the team’s manager with the option to compete the following season.
Nicole placed seventh at the Oregon State cross country meet, which marked the first time a Pendleton High runner placed in the top 10 at state since 1992. She also became the first runner in school history to place in the top 15 at a Footlocker race in Walnut, Calif., when she placed 14th overall and first among all Oregon runners.
Nicole started running her freshman year but didn’t make the varsity until her sophomore year when she helped the team to a third-place finish at state. She ran a person best of 22:06 in the 5 kilometers her freshman year and improved each season, evident by her 19:39 time at the state meet as a senior.
Katie was the Pendleton’s No. 3 runner last fall and her personal best time in the 5 kilometers is 20:45. She placed in the top 50 at the Footlocker meet.
In a story in the East Oregonian this week, the twins said they have spent only six days apart and wanted to go to college together. They both plan to major in Business at LCSC.
“I will say we are very excited about adding both gals to the program,” Collins said. “Both will be adding and helping our running family in a lot of different ways. Katie will be running around keeping me organized and Nicole will be running. You can see that Nicole has been improving each year on a relatively low mileage high school program and we have no reason to believe she won’t continue that improvement curve here at LC.”
