LA GRANDE — In the first race of the season, sophomore Justin Ash decided he would implement a running strategy he hadn’t yet tried during his time on the Eastern Oregon University men’s cross-country team: bolt to the front early and hold the lead.

It worked. Ash won that race, the Cascade Collegiate Conference Preview in early September, and has stuck with the strategy ever since.

“It worked for me, so it was ‘we’re going to keep sticking with this,’ ” Ash said.

The style has worked each time Ash has run this fall. He has used it to surge not only to the front of the pack for the Mountaineers, but into the discussion as one of the top runners in the CCC. So far this fall he has won two races and taken 10th in a third race that featured several NCAA Division I runners. In that third race, the Charles Bowles Invitational at Willamette University, he was the first CCC runner to cross the line, running the race 80 seconds faster than he did a year ago.

EOU head coach Ben Welch said he anticipated Ash would be in the mix as one of his squad’s top runners this fall, but even then the longtime coach has been impressed with Ash’s start.

“We knew when we got some more mileage under his belt he would take off, but oh boy,” Welch said. “It’s not just the fact he is winning, but how. He’s getting out and getting after it and putting it to people.”

Ash said he ran around 60 miles a week during summer training, and doing so gave him the confidence he needed to step up his pace from the get-go.

“He’s got some mileage under his belt,” Welch said. “He’s an aerobic freak is what it boils down to. He’s light, he’s strong and he’s efficient.”

Both said the key for Ash has been logging miles since the end of the last year, getting a “base” under the still-relatively new runner. The sophomore didn’t start running cross-country until his junior year of high school, a transition that started when the former Powder Valley Badger struck up a conversation with a former EOU all-American who was teaching at the school, Nic Maszk.

“I was talking to him, and I said ‘what if we had a cross-country team?’ ” Ash said.

He ran on the Baker/Powder Valley cross-country co-op, but said Maszk coached him on days when he didn’t travel down to Baker City to train with the rest of the team.

Maszk saw potential in Ash early on, and, according to the sophomore, he was told by Maszk he could be good if he stuck with the sport.

“He always told me right from the beginning, ‘I’ve seen a lot of runners, and if you stick with it and work hard, you have something I don’t see in a lot of people,’ ” Ash said. “He believed in me.”

He reached the position of top runner on his team about as quickly as he gets to the front of a race. By his final year in high school, he won four races Baker/Powder Valley was entered in and was top five in the other two races.

His first year at EOU the next fall was a strong one, as several times he was among the top five runners for the Mountaineers. He capped his opening campaign by taking 121st overall at the NAIA National Championship race, one where he was the second Eastern runner across the line.

Welch said prior to the season he anticipated Ash would be in the top end of the pack for the Mountaineers, but even he was a bit shocked by Ash’s approach to the first race.

“He just runs away and says ‘come and get me,’ ” Welch said. “He’s not sitting around with everyone and taking off at the end. That’s a surprise.”

It may seem a bit unconventional for a runner to take off quickly each race as Ash has, but Welch hasn’t seen a need to rein him back in — something a different runner might require if they ran with that style, or something he might have done a year ago with Ash.

“Mostly my advice to him was, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.’ In other words, don’t change it, but fine-tune it,” Welch said. “What I talk to him about is you need to be a little bit more relaxed and efficient at that same pace.”

The one element of his current running style Welch and Ash acknowledged does need tightened up is the finish, with Ash running out of gas a bit at the finish.

That wasn’t a concern in his first two races as he built a large lead. At the Bowles Invitational on Oct. 1, he set out quickly with the Division I runners, who, being a bit more established, did pull away from him late. Still, Ash finished the race in 24:44.2, a time that was within 30 seconds of the winner and 80 seconds ahead of the pace he ran on the same course a year ago.

“It’s not like he didn’t close well on the track, but other guys closed faster,” Welch said.

Just three weeks remain until the CCC Championships on Nov. 4, and Ash has aspirations of running for the top spot, though there are several runners — including those also wearing the EOU Blue and Gold — who will be right with him. Ash himself expects Eastern, currently ranked fifth in the nation, to contend for the CCC title.

“How were ranked right now, we’re obviously trying to go for No. 1 at conference,” he said. “We’re obviously capable of it. We gotta show up and perform, of course.”

Welch believes Ash is also capable of attaining all-American status at nationals this season, especially given he — and several teammates — are running ahead of the current all-American on the team, Travis Running.

“Obviously he wants to win conference and be an all-American,” Welch said.

And with two years still ahead, the sky is the limit for the sophomore.

Especially if he can maintain the quick start he has had.