Portland Magazine
March 28, 2024
UP cross country runners Matt Strangio and Laura Pellicoro are breaking records and defying expectations.
Story by Dave Devine
Matt Strangio (pictured at center) and Laura Pellicoro. Photos courtesy of UP Athletics
LAST DECEMBER, WHILE most of their classmates were studying for exams, University of Portland runners Matt Strangio and Laura Pellicoro were on the far side of the country, preparing for a different kind of final. Competing indoors at Boston University only two weeks after racing at the NCAA cross country championships, they hoped to convert fall fitness and late-season sharpness into one final, fast mark before the winter break.
On a banked, 200-meter oval that Strangio swears “puts lightning in your feet,” he and Pellicoro demolished a pair of school records they already owned—acing their “Boston final” with flying colors.
Strangio’s 13:31.92 for 5,000 meters carved nearly eight seconds from his all-time indoor mark. Pellicoro’s 9:00.46 for 3,000 meters whittled more than three seconds from the school record she set last winter. It was a cathartic finish to what had been, for each, an up and down cross-country season, but it also served as an emphatic punctuation mark to a year in which both have cemented their place near the top of UP’s long legacy of distance stars.
Strangio was the better-known recruit out of high school, a prep standout from California who nearly broke four minutes in the mile. The son of two former NCAA distance runners, he was drawn to UP by two main factors: the connection he felt with longtime men’s coach Rob Conner, and the sense of camaraderie he found on the team. After three years on campus, he acknowledges that it’s been challenging, at times, to stick with the plan and wait for his mileage and fitness to match his ambitions. But after a fall season in which he was named West Coast Conference Runner of the Year, Strangio is finally hitting his stride.
“You recruit a guy who’s kind of done it all in high school,” Conner says, “and you never know what you’re going to get. It was refreshing to find a team-oriented guy that, after he realized he had to work harder, took on the challenge.”
Strangio’s breakthrough started at the WCC championship meet, where he put a pair of rough, early-season races behind him and soared to the individual title, his first cross country win as a Pilot.
“Probably the happiest 24 minutes I ran all season,” he says, “because it was finally like, ‘Okay, this is how it’s supposed to feel, this is me again.’”
Two weeks later, at the NCAA West Regional in his hometown of Sacramento, Strangio was superb again, finishing second in a loaded field as friends, family, and former teammates cheered him the entire way. His runner-up effort led the Pilots to a third-place finish, qualifying them for the NCAA championship the following week. At that national meet, Strangio crossed 76th, fronting a Pilots team that finished 23rd. It wasn’t exactly the outcome he was hoping for, but his coach is quick to put the season in perspective.
“Think about what he did,” Conner says. “He starts with an average race and a poor race, and then—you only have two weeks—all of a sudden he wins conference. And then gets second at Regionals, four seconds behind the top Stanford guy. That’s a great season.”
The coach goes on to offer the ultimate compliment from a mentor with 34 years on The Bluff. He compares Strangio to one of the best ever. “He’s kind of like Woody,” Conner says, referring to US Olympian and American record-holder Woody Kincaid ’15. “When it’s needed, Matt can run the tough efforts.”
It’s the sort of comparison that UP women’s coach Ian Solof has been making lately, too—in regards to Pellicoro.
All-timer talk.
“She’s so mentally tough,” Solof says. “She can push herself, maybe more than any athlete I’ve ever had.”
An international student from Milan, Italy, Pellicoro had never heard of UP until a gap year after high school left her exploring scholarship opportunities in the United States. She, too, was born into an athletic family—mom ran cross country and swam, dad was a high jumper and soccer player. She began running as a seven-year-old, but soon abandoned the sport for volleyball and judo. Only after winning a middle school cross country race, and catching the attention of an enthusiastic teacher, was she convinced to take up running again.
Within a year, she won her first national title.
“After that,” Pellicoro says, “it was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to keep with running.’”
She competed through high school, then took a gap year to weigh her options. Enlisting in the Italian military was one possibility; it would allow her to continue training with a military-sponsored team. But she eventually decided to pursue a different route: a scholarship to an American university. Speaking little English at the time, and with a global pandemic rendering travel nearly impossible, Pellicoro conducted her college search via video calls and internet searches.
When she eventually reached Solof at UP, the coach discovered a student with enormous athletic potential and a personality that fit with the team he had already assembled. Pellicoro arrived in the spring of 2021, wasting little time rewriting the Pilot record books. She was a cross country All-American in 2022, and has been an NCAA track finalist at the 800, 1,500, and Mile distances—showing remarkable range.
Last summer, she represented Italy at the World University Games in China, scoring double gold in the 800- and 1,500-meter races. But her deep push into summer competition meant Pellicoro had a later-than-ideal beginning to cross country training. She still managed to lead the Pilot women to a WCC conference title and place 41st at the NCAA championship, one spot from repeating her All-American finish. It was a season, she says, that left her hungry for a return to the track. She plans to race the 800 and Mile this winter, and then redshirt the outdoor season to focus on making Italy’s team for the 2024 Paris Games.
“The big dream,” she says, “is the Olympics.”
Solof believes it’s within reach. He’s had to recalibrate his expectations multiple times since Pellicoro arrived on campus.
“She makes you constantly reframe things,” the coach says. “Always thinking bigger.”
It’s the type of ambition that Strangio routinely expresses, too.
Big dreams. Lofty goals.
Two harriers, among the best The Bluff has ever seen.
Each still holds another year of eligibility. There’s little doubt that the historic races, like the miles on their legs, will continue to accumulate.
DAVE DEVINE ’97 (MAT) lives, writes, and runs in Portland, Oregon.
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