Cross Country Makes Strides At Notre Dame

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The Central Michigan University cross country team made strides in the Joe Piane Invitational at Notre Dame on Friday, which was the Chippewas' biggest meet of the year with more than 50 teams in the field.

"There were over 20 nationally ranked schools, so this is a very big meet," track and field/cross country director Jenny Swieton said."I was really impressed with how everyone handled it; our freshmen and sophomores have never been to a meet like this and it can be kind of intimidating."

The CMU women ran two races, placing 16^th out of 24 in the Gold 5K race with 319 points; CMU finished 11^th out of 13 schools in the women's Open 5K with 278 points. The Chippewa men were 17^th of 21 schools in the Gold 5-mile race.

Sophomore Emily Paupore was the top runner for the Chippewas, placing 22^nd in the women's Gold race with a time of 17:57:5. Auburn's Joyce Kimeli won in 17:05:05.

Also for CMU in the women's Gold, Anya Turner finished in 56^th, Lauren Beckmann came in 60^th, Jelena Prescott was 88^th, Natalie Newcombe was 95^th, Annie Bennett finished 109^th, and Lilly Evans came in 140^th.

Freshman Ashlyn Nagel was the top runner for the Chippewas in the women's Open, placing 84^th with a time of 19:18.2. Six other CMU runners competed, placing from 115^th to 156^th.

"One thing I say a lot is progress, not perfection," Swieton said, "and I feel like that was kind of what today was for us.
"We definitely made progress, there's things we did a lot better than we did two weeks ago (at Michigan State). We definitely competed better and raced faster, but there are still some things we need to work on."

For the CMU men, Adam Rzentkowski placed 31^st with a time of 25:18.9. Cincinnati's Alec Sandusky placed first in 24:17.2.
Riad Rababeh placed 79^th for CMU, while Owen Howard and Hunter Fougner placed 84^th and 95^th, respectively. Carson White placed 138^th, while Gabe Goosen finished 141^st, Ben Griffith came in 146^th, and Steven Porter was 148^th.

Swieton said that she and the team know exactly what they need to do to continue improving, and everyone is excited and ready to do those things.

"What's cool is that each race you can use as a learning experience to kind of fine tune what you want to do at the end of the year," she said. "We only get those opportunities to race once every two weeks.

"We took a lot away from this group and we're really, really close to where we want to be when the season ends. We're significantly further ahead than we were two weeks ago."

The Chippewas will have their next meet on Oct. 15 at 3:15 p.m. in Peoria, Ill. at the Bradley Pink Classic.

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Players Mentioned

Lauren Beckmann

Annie Bennett

Lilly Evans

Ashlyn Nagel

Natalie Newcombe

Emily Paupore

Jelena Prescott

Anya Turner