Chippewas 3rd & 7th At Michigan State

Andy Glezen, CMUChippewas.com

EAST LANSING, Mich. – The Central Michigan cross country teams planned to showcase their young talent on Friday at the Spartan Invitational, and they did.

The men's team placed seventh running its first 8K of the season, while the women's team took home third place in its first 6K. Thirty-three teams comprised each race.

Michigan State finished first in both races. The Spartan women are ranked 15^th, the men 24^th.

MEN
Redshirt Freshman Riad Rababeh led the Chippewa men, placing 20^th, in 25 minutes, 43 seconds.

Not far behind were teammates Mark Beckmann (25^th) and Chandler Lorf (27^th), who placed within 11 seconds of Rababeh. Will Finch placed 96^th to round out the top four for CMU. The Chippewas sat out three of their top runners in Logan Kleam, Luke Anderson and Conor Naughton.

"We went with a youth experience," CMU men's coach Matt Kaczor said. "Those front three ran perfectly. That was great race by those guys."

LORF
After his first 8K as a Chippewa, the true freshman gave his coach a reason to be excited with a top-30 finish.

Kaczor said the Chippewas' performance on Friday bodes well for the team's potential depth.

"That was a defining moment where I had to say OK, we're going to be a little bit deeper than we thought," he said. "That was huge to see that he was able to fight back, it's a big adjustment, that was a great race."

WOMEN
The CMU women executed their game plan to run as a pack with five runners finishing within 38 seconds of each other. Kirsten Olling paced the Chippewas as she placed 34^th in 23:03.6.

"We wanted to go out conservatively and try to pick people off throughout," CMU women's coach Jenny Swieton said. "We did that because a lot of people were running their first 6K ever and it was really hot."

Lauren Beckmann (42^nd) and Megan Merlino (43^rd) finished within about one second of each other. Beckmann came in at 23:17.1, while Merlino posted a 23:18.2 finish.

Also for the Chippewas, Natalie Beaulieu was 49^th (23:35.7) and Samantha Allmacher finished 53^rd in 23:41.3.

TEAM EFFORT
Without redshirt senior Megan O'Neil, the Chippewas relied on each other for their third-place finish in the team's first 6K of the season.

"There's just a lot of factors that can make them nervous about the situation, but as soon as the gun goes off they do a great job at managing that stress," Swieton said. "The comfort of having your teammates next to you puts you at ease a little bit."

NEXT
CMU will compete in the Notre Dame Joe Piane Invitational on Sept. 28.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Luke Anderson

Mark Beckmann

Logan Kleam

Chandler Lorf

Conor Naughton

Riad Rababeh