Last weekend featured the Cross Country team’s first meet since hosting Les Duke Invitational on Sept. 10. Both the men and the women ran at the Augustana Invitational on Friday and the men also ran at the Roy Griak Invitational on Saturday. The men placed 22nd out of 33 teams and 15th out of 32 teams in their respective races, while the women placed 5th out of 27 teams.
The men’s team was divided into two groups, as one travelled to Rock Island, Ill. for the Augustana Invitational while the other travelled to Minneapolis for the Roy Griak Invitational. The Men were unable to match their first place Les Duke finish, but Head Coach Will Freeman attributes the losses to uncontrollable factors.
“Both races were terrific,” said Freeman. “[It was a] great competition and the conditions were near perfect. We just were not at top form due to illness and injuries.”
At the Augustana meet, Harry Maher ’15 led the Friday’s run for the team, finishing 114th in the 403-runner field in a time of 27:05.3. Chris Gallo ’14 and Doug Anderson ’15 finished next for the team as they finished 167th and 169th respectively.
“Augustana was a really flat course, which was nice for a fast time, but running three large circles for five miles [got] pretty boring,” Maher said. “If you look at team place overall it looked like we did worse, but there were some huge improvements in times for individuals, so it was really only a few injuries that weakened our scoring.”
In the Griak meet, Erik Figge ’13 was the top performer for the ’Roos, posting a 51st place finish with a time of 26:52.3. Ben Tyler ’14 came in 57th while Nate Kakazu ’13 came in 86th.
Although the team as a whole may not have finished at the top of the field, many individual performances showed improvement. Maher’s time of 27:05.3 is the best time in Grinnell history at the Augustana meet. He also shaved his time by 1:05 from his previous run at the Duke.
With improvements like Maher’s time being made and injuries beginning to heal, the men are not worried at all about their future races.
“Frank Canady ’14 is fighting an ankle sprain and Evan Griffith ’15 is having some issues with a strained calf [while] Dan Krauss ’12 is coming off a virus,” Freeman said. “There is plenty of time to get folks healthy and over the stuff going around.”
The women finished in the top five for the third time this season. Stephanie Rouse ’13 led the Skull Crushers with an 11th place finish in 22:39.2. Her mark was the fourth fastest 6K time Grinnell Women’s Cross Country History.
“We had talked about amping up our intensity for races and they came through,” said Women’s Head Coach Evelyn Freeman. “Just about everyone had their best times of the season thus far and many had lifetime bests.”
Sarah Burnell ’14 had a time of 23:10.2, giving her a 24th place finish. Burnell’s time is the ninth best finish in team’s 6K history. Hannah Colter ’12 came in 29th, while Diana Seer ’15 and Meg Rudy ’14 finished 45th and 52nd, respectively.
Like the Men’s team, individual performances by runners from top to bottom were significantly improved.
“The first year runners are coming along nicely and adapting to the training as well as Grinnell College,” Freeman said. “Diana Seer had a big drop in time finishing as our number four runner. Metzere Bierlein ’13 has also improved significantly each race this year and is one of our top runners.”
Although the injuries and illnesses did not hurt the women as much as they did the men, there is no doubt that staying healthy will be crucial for the Pioneers.
“Physically we were maybe struggling a little bit because a lot of our women were sick or still recovering from being sick,” Colter said. “But we were mentally really strong heading into Augustana because we’d had a team talk about goals earlier that week and decided we really wanted to go for it.”
The Pioneers will be tested in their next meet at the Wartburg Invitational on Oct. 8 in Waverly, IA.
