The Collegian

Issue date: 10/8/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Michael Mayday Senior Britton Deuel leads the pack in the Notre Dame Invitational this past weekend. Both the men's and women's team came back with both pluses and minuses but are looking foward.

Media Credit: Michael Mayday

Media Credit: Michael Mayday

The men's cross country team hit a speed bump on Friday at the Notre Dame Invitational. They finished 12th of 19 teams in the Gold Division, behind division rival Grand Valley State University, who took second place. North Central College finished first.

"This time I wouldn't say it went well," junior Alex Ralston said. "As a team I think we kind of underperformed compared to what we should have done or what we could have done."

Senior captain Britton Deuel concurred.

"As a team we didn't race as we could have," he said. "We had much better races in general at Kenosha than we did on Friday."

Despite their dissatisfaction, the men have some positives they can take from the meet.

"It made us all a little bit angry or hungry for the next races," Ralston said.

Another reason head coach Bill Lundberg is looking up is the team's depth.

"We've got about 12 guys right now who are really looking good towards the top seven spots," he said.

One of those 12 is sophomore Peter Walsh, who ran in the junior varsity race.

"Peter showed up well at 18," Lundberg said. "Had he been in the varsity race, he would have been near our seventh runner."

The women were much more upbeat about their race. They finished tenth out of 20 teams, with Grand Valley finishing in first place.

"It went really well for the girls team," sophomore Erin Brunko said. "Last year we placed 18th at the meet, and this week we placed 10th-so it was a big jump."

Junior Ashley Quick was the top runner for the women, finishing 31st out of about 160 runners. Brunko finished right behind Quick at 36th, topping of Hillsdale's top two.

Lundberg was happy with both teams' performances.

"I'm pleased with how they're doing," he said. "They're going strong."

Lundberg also commented on the caliber of the competition at the meet.

"Even in our Gold Division there were some Division I teams and some national power [division] I, II and III teams," he said.

In particular, Lundberg said that the Grand Valley teams were very strong and would be a team ahead of Hillsdale in the GLIAC, with five to seven runners on both the men's and women's teams finishing before Hillsdale's top runners. This fact is exacerbated by the continued absence of talented sophomores Amanda Putt and Tim Jagielski, who both may be red-shirted due to injuries this year.

Conference competition begins in three weeks, which means both teams need to stay sharp and focused.

"We've got a lot of work to do in the next couple weeks," Deuel said.

Putt also emphasized the importance of conference competition.

"These races are more like stepping stones [to conference]," she said.

The next meet is the Michigan Intercollegiates in Grand Rapids, Mich., Oct. 9. The meet will be made up entirely of Michigan squads.

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