Jake Perrin, a senior at Flathead High School, has signed to run at Gonzaga University next year.
A few days after running the third fastest 3,200-meter race ever by a Montana high schooler, Perrin penned a commitment to train under Pat Tyson, the Bulldogs venerable head coach.
Perrin, who only started training seriously as a distance runner late in his sophomore year, will join fellow Kalispell distance runner Troy Fraley, a 2013 Glacier High School graduate who is now a junior at Gonzaga.
Perrin won the Class AA state cross country championship last fall, clocking 14:47 for three miles. Last spring he won the AA state title in the 1,600, running 4:21.17, and placed second in the 3,200, 9:30.67.
Last weekend in Los Angeles, Perrin placed 17th in the 3,200 at the Arcadia Invitational, clocking 9:02.49. His time was the third fastest by a Montana distance runner behind his brother, Zach, who ran 8:55.24 in 2012 and now runs at the University of Colorado, and Missoula’s Adam Peterman, who clocked 8:57 and is also at Colorado.
Next fall he will join one of the most successful cross country coaches in the U.S. Tyson, the director of cross country and track at Gonzaga in Spokane, has developed the Bulldog distance program into one of the top 10 Division I programs in the West. Tyson previously coached at the University of Oregon, where he competed under legendary coach Bill Bowerman. At Oregon, Tyson was teammates with distance running icon Steve Prefontaine, the Olympian and three-time NCAA national cross country champion.