Chippewa Women 30th, Men 34th At Pre-Nationals

Nick Vuylsteke, CMUChippewas.com

MADISON, Wis. – The Central Michigan women finished 30^th and the men were 34^th against a rugged field chock-full of ranked teams on Saturday at the Pre-Nationals Invitational, hosted by Wisconsin.

The women's race comprised 36 teams, including No. 2-ranked New Mexico, which placed first. The men's race was made up of 35 teams, including top-ranked Northern Arizona, which won.

THE MEN
The top placer for the CMU men's team was junior Mark Beckmann, who finished in 139^th place in 25 minutes, 24.7 seconds. Grant Fisher of Stanford was first in 23:48.8. The race covered 8K.

Following Beckmann for the Chippewas was freshman phenom Chandler Lorf, who placed 167^th in 25:45.9. Also for the Chippewas, Logan Kleam finished 181^st (25:50.9), Luke Anderson was 192^nd (25:55.4), and Riad Rababeh was 198^th (26:01.9). The race comprised 242 runners.

"We left a lot out there," CMU men's coach Matt Kaczor said. "You could tell with our youth that they got a little shellshocked with the first challenge that we've had all year."

The men's field included nine teams ranked in the top 26, including No. 3 Wisconsin, No. 5 Stanford and No. 9 Colorado State.

"They weren't in a highly contested race at Notre Dame, the Michigan State race is low key. They saw a lot of the best teams in the country and it was almost like they were in awe of everybody and didn't get out well. It's hard to pick up places when you're running against that caliber of teams."

THE WOMEN
Senior Megan O'Neil finished in 45^th in 21:09.3 to lead the Chippewa women. Weini Kelati of New Mexico placed first in 19:33.3.

"O'Neil had a really good race," CMU women's coach Jenny Swieton said. "Whe bounced back and got exactly what she hoped for and mixed it up with some really elite runners. If she finished top 50, we would have been really happy with that, and she finished 45th so that was good.

"The race didn't go exactly perfect for her, but she handled it really well. Not only did she run really well, we took away some lessons to help her run better next time too."

The women's race was just as stacked as was the men's with nine ranked teams in the field including No. 6 Stanford and No. 8 Wisconsin.

Also for the Chippewa women, Kirsten Olling placed 101^st (21:48.7), Morgan Merlino was 179^th (22:39.3), Natalie Beaulieu was 200^th (22:56.3), Lauren Beckman was 202^nd (23:00.9) and Samantha Allmacher finished 205^th (23:04.0). The 6K race comprised 239 runners.

LESSONS LEARNED
Both Swieton and Kaczor said that their teams learned valuable lessons from the race, lessons they can employ as they improve.

Swieton: "We had some pretty big PRs (personal records) and we had some people run pretty well. But everybody walked away with something that they can do better next time but are still confident, which is really hard to do. Olling knows that she has to put herself in the mix a little bit. She ate people up the whole race, but she knows if she starts out a little faster, she'll finish a little higher."

Kaczor: "You've got to take advantage of the opportunities you're given. That is what they figured out today. They had a great opportunity to run against some big competition, and they didn't take full advantage of it and now they're going to have to really work at the conference championship as a group to get back to what they want."

NEXT
The Mid-American Conference Championships are next for CMU, on Oct. 27 at Toledo.

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Players Mentioned

Luke Anderson

Mark Beckmann

Logan Kleam

Chandler Lorf

Riad Rababeh