Rebekah Bosler joined the Portland State cross country and track & field coaching staffs as a volunteer assistant coach ahead of the 2018-19 season.
Bosler helped lead the Vikings to their best cross country season in program history in 2018, her first year with the program. The Viking women tied their highest team finish ever at the Big Sky meet with a fifth-place finish, after being picked to finish in a tie for ninth. Additionally, the Vikings' fifth-place finish came in the 11-team Big Sky Conference, making it the Vikings' best finish ever within the conference relative to the size of the field. The Viking women followed it up with a 15th-place finish at the NCAA West Regional, their highest finish at the meet since they placed 11th in 2002.
Seniors Kaila Gibson and Sarah Medved led the Viking women to their historic performances throughout the year, as they traded off going first and second all season. Medved and Gibson became the first Viking teammates – male or female – to place in the top 40 together at the NCAA West Regional, just under two weeks after they became the first Viking teammates to place in the top 10 together at the Big Sky Conference meet. The Vikings had never had two runners place in the top 50 of the NCAA West Regional before Medved and Gibson, let alone the top 40.
Medved led the Vikings with a 39th-place finish at the NCAA West Regional, the second highest finish ever by a Viking women's runner, behind only Melissa Telford's 28th-place finish in 1999. Medved broke the school record in the 6k with her finish at the NCAA West Regional meet, while Gibson also broke the previous record while finishing only three-tenths of a second behind her. Gibson broke the school record in the 4k earlier in the season.
Medved became only the second two-time All-Big Sky honoree in program history while finishing 10th at the Big Sky meet behind Gibson at ninth. Medved and Gibson finished with seven top-10 finishes between them during the season, including at the Cougar Classic where they each placed in the top five to lead the Vikings to their first-ever team win at a meet hosted by a Pac-12 school (Washington State). The Vikings upset regionally-ranked Washington State and Idaho at that meet, moving them into the USTFCCCA West Region rankings at 15th. The Vikings remained ranked 15th for three straight weeks, the longest period of time that the Vikings have ever been ranked in the poll.
The Viking men, meanwhile, recorded their second-best finish ever at the Big Sky meet relative to the size of the conference, as they placed eighth out of 11 teams after being picked to finish dead last before the season. The men also recorded their best finish at the NCAA West Regional meet since 2003 with a 21st-place finish.
Freshmen Max Norman and Drew Seidel led the Viking men to their strong finishes at both meets. Norman and Seidel placed 31st and 32nd, respectively, at the Big Sky meet, making them the Vikings' first pair of freshmen men's runners to place in the top 35 of the Big Sky meet since 2002.
Norman and Seidel also led the Vikings with 98th- and 99th-place finishes at the NCAA West Regional, making them the first freshmen teammates to place in the top 100 together at the regional meet in program history. The Viking men hadn't had two runners of any classification finish in the top 100 of the NCAA West Regional since 2003, when Michael Devenport and Blake Flanders placed 56th and 93rd overall, respectively. Norman's 98th-place finish also marked the highest finish by a first-year Viking men's runner at the regional since Devenport placed 64th overall in 2002.
