Chippewas 4th, 17th At Notre Dame

Nick Vuylsteke, CMUChippewas.com

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The Central Michigan men placed fourth in the Gold Division and the Chippewa women finished 17^th in the Blue Division on Friday in the 63^rd Joe Piane Cross Country Invitational at Notre Dame.

BYU, which is ranked 11^th, won the women's race while Calvin College was first in the men's Gold Division event.

MEN
Redshirt junior Luke Anderson finished ninth with a time of 24 minutes, 50.41 seconds to lead CMU in the men's race, an 8K.

About 25 seconds behind Anderson was CMU's Riad Rababeh, who finished 17^th. Also for the Chippewas, junior Mark Beckmann placed 22^nd and freshman Chandler Lorf placed 24^th. Rababeh, Beckmann finished within 10 seconds of each other.

"We were hoping for top five and we were able to obtain that and we're getting a much better pack so that was good to see so I can't complain too much," CMU men's coach Matt Kaczor said. "We've definitely got some room for improvement, but it's only the end of September so we're in a good spot right now."

WOMEN
Senior Megan O'Neil led the Chippewa women, placing 45^th in 17:45. The women's race covered 5K.

Just three seconds behind O'Neil was teammate Kirsten Olling, who placed 48^th. Also for the Chippewas, freshman Lauren Beckmann placed 88^th and sophomore Morgan Merlino was 106^th.

"I think we did pretty well," CMU women's coach Jenny Swieton said. "The beginning of the race was super scrappy. People fell down, we had women on our team hurdling other people, but I think they handled the situation really well. Some of them needed to be a little more aggressive at the beginning but we did a good job of moving up during the race.

"Everybody on the team moved up throughout the race, which was something we really wanted to do and was important."

YOUTH SERVED
Kaczor had high praise for his two freshman, Rababeh and Lorf.

"What Lorf did today was huge," Kaczor said. "Just another great performance. When you have small numbers, you're relying on true freshman right away, so it's been a great surprise from where he was out of high school to where he is now. We're just seeing some good things and we're just very happy with the way he's developing right now.

"Rababeh had a great race today. What can you say? He's been steadily improving. He just looked good it wasn't like there was a struggle to the finish. With about a kilometer to go, he was pushing, and we saw a little bit of a sprint out of him so that was nice to see."

PROGRESS
"I'm really happy with how we did and with how we're progressing as a team, especially the younger women because I think it's a really scary situation to be in and I thought they did pretty well," Swieton said.

NEXT
The Chippewas are scheduled to run in the Pre-nationals on Saturday, Oct. 13, in Madison, Wis.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Luke Anderson

Mark Beckmann

Chandler Lorf

Riad Rababeh