PITTSBURGH, Pa. – It has been a long, hard road to victory for Franciscan University's Baron Cross Country team. Knowing they faced tough competition from Penn State Behrend, the Barons finished strong in first place out of the ten Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference schools in Saturday's conference championship at Schenley Park.
The Barons finished with a team score of 26, beating three-time defending champion Behrend's team score of 32 by a narrow margin. Bill Jones clipped a time of 27:11.9 in the 8K to earn first place out of the 75 runners.
"This is something that the guys have been working towards for a couple of years now and have wanted this win so badly," said head coach Dan Kuebler. "Behrend beat them about three weeks ago at the Carnegie Mellon Invite, but they knew they were competitively close to them in times."
Four Franciscan runners placed in the top five overall runners at the championship. Jones was followed by Kevin LeRoy in third place with a time of 27:22.4, and Joey Schlueter and Jack Kaiser placed in quick succession behind LeRoy with times of 27:27.3 and 27:32.1, respectively.
Behrend's Carl Kallgren was on the heels of Jones with a second place finish of 27:14.8.
"The men faced a lot of adversity but still came out on top," said Kuebler. Jones was sidelines for a good part of the season with injuries, leaving the Barons with a possibility of competing without their top runner. Fortunately, he recovered in time for the championship.
"Jack [Kaiser] had his best race since he started running to Franciscan," noted Kuebler, "and it helped the team finish strong. Michael Gotta had probably his best race he's ever had. There was no one who had an off day and that made all the difference. We don't have a deep team compared to Behrend – they have double the number of racers we have to help their finish."
The Barons will head to postseason competition at the Eastern College Athletic Conference Championship this Saturday, November 6, in Providence, Rhode Island. The top seven runners competing are Jones, LeRoy, Schlueter, Kaiser, Gotta, Jonah Carlstrom, and Jared Kimutis.
"We should be very competitive with runners who have a shot winning the race, and both teams should finish in the top five," said Kuebler. "It is great to basically have another championship race to go to – especially for our seniors who will be able to race again."
