Blake Guillozet was hired as Men's and Women's Cross Country Head Coach for Oakland City University in June of 2023.
In his first season, the men placed 10th out of 11 at the River States Conference meet and the women placed 11th out of 11. Guillozet brought in four freshmen men and three freshmen women for his second season at Oakland City. They then finished 8th out of 10 on the men's side and 10th out of 10 on the women's side. The men qualified for NCCAA Nationals and had their best 8k team average in program history (28:34). They finished 9th/11 at NCCAA Nationals in 2024.
He is bringing back 5 returners on the men's side and some more talent on the women's side in Heidi Breidenbaugh and Melissa de Jong (Who also plays women's tennis at Oakland City). "The men and women have built a culture that wants to continue to improve. They are bought into the program and I'm expecting more growth as they continue to capitalize on their individual marks this season," mentioned Guillozet. The now experienced group of men look to make a statement in the conference, along with the women looking to improve in the conference ranks. Guillozet has put his focus on getting better every practice and every race.
Prior to coming to the Mighty Oaks program, Guillozet was the full-time assistant cross country and track coach at Division I Wright State University. Guillozet took full reign of the men’s distance program in June of 2021, leading one of the men to a 14th-place finish and Second Team All-Horizon League honors at the 2021 Horizon League Outdoor Championships. During the 2022 spring, under his guidance, a trio of his athletes broke the school’s 10,000-meter individual record which had stood since 1989. Guillozet also assisted four Raiders in breaking the 15-minute barrier in the 5,000-meter run in the same season.
Before Wright State University, Guillozet was the Assistant Cross Country and Track & Field coach at Division III Pfeiffer University in Misenheimer, North Carolina, from October 2019 to December 2020. During his time at Pfeiffer, Guillozet coached one of the men to an ECAC third-place conference finish in the 1000-meter run, at the Armory in NYC, and one of the women to a USA-South All-Conference top-14 finish in Cross Country.
Guillozet competed for the Wright State University Raiders from 2016-2018, earning a bachelor’s degree in Marketing before attending grad school and competing at Columbia International University (Columbia, SC), where he was named NCCAA All-American for Cross Country with his top-14 finish. He also was named the Athlete of the Year during the 2019-2020 academic year.
