Carnegie Mellon University Invitational Cross Country meet

BY KATHLEEN STUBBS
STAFF WRITER

The Franciscan men’s and women’s cross country teams competed in the Carnegie Mellon University Invitational Saturday, including 5 runners who got PRs, or personal records.

The men’s team finished eighth out of 13 teams, which is an improvement on past years, Kuebler said. Carnegie Mellon made changes to the course used last year, which took away the advantage of runners who had run at the meet in previous years.

“It was a new course this year,” Kuebler said. “[Carnegie Mellon University] changed the start and the finish. I think everybody was dealing with a new course.”

Returning runner Sophomore Emmett Delaney improved his time from Carnegie Mellon’s meet last year on the changed course, and got a PR in the process. Senior Jack Nash, who also raced at Carnegie Mellon last year, improved his time on the course as well.

Delaney PR’d by at least 1 minute and 30 seconds and Nash PR’d by about 1 minute, Kuebler said.

Despite changes in the course, Kuebler said runners who had not raced at Carnegie Mellon before, specifically freshmen Graham Martin and Tim Jackson, had some of the best races on the team.

“Particularly on the guys’ side, the two freshmen had the best races,” Kuebler said. “Maybe part of it is that they weren’t intimidated [by the hilly course] and they ran a little bit more aggressive[ly] – and they ran really well.”

Martin PR’d up by nearly 1 minute. Jackson finished less than 5 seconds behind Martin.

“Graham [had] his best race ever, I don’t think he’s ever run 28 before, he just jumped over those and ran 27:40,” Kuebler said. “Tim did the same thing and ran 27:44, and that is a really nice achievement, especially [Jackson] stepping up.”

Freshman Will Hassan got a PR Saturday as well.

The Lady Barons finished 12th out of 17 complete teams. Seniors Sydney Novak and Elise Zajicek finished 91st and 100th, respectively, out of nearly 200 runners.

Zajicek got a PR, despite not having a pack with which to run. “The packs within the women’s team were a little more scattered [than the men’s team],” Kuebler said. “Some people were on their own, and then people like Elise, who sort of jumped groups, did really well.”   The incompleteness of packs, a detriment to the racing strategy, was due to some members of packs not being present for the meet, Kuebler said.  Kuebler said he thinks packs on the women’s team will improve when the team is complete at the next meet. “We’re having decent groupings there, and I think that when everybody’s healthy, we’ve got everybody [racing] and we will have a couple nice packs [for the women’s team],” Kuebler said.  The men’s and women’s cross country teams will compete in the Intra-Regional Rumble at Oberlin College Oct. 18. The Barons and Lady Barons will conclude their seasons by being first-time hosts of conference championships, to be held on campus Nov. 1.

 

Men’s results: http://athletics.cmu.edu/sports/mxc/2014-15/files/CMU_Invite_Men.htm
Women’s results: athletics.cmu.edu/sports/wxc/2014-15/files/CMU_Invite_Women.htm