LATROBE, Pa. — The Franciscan University men's and women's cross country teams both placed fourth in the St. Vincent College Invitational Saturday morning. The men's team placed fourth out of 11 schools and the women's team placed fourth out of 13 schools.

"Both teams looked stronger today even though they ran a difficult course," said head coach Dan Kuebler. "They competed better against the other teams particularly against St. Vincent than they did at Notre Dame last weekend."

Despite the challenging course senior Michael Gotta ran a personal record of 29:07 and placed 35th out of 120 runners in the 8-kilometer race. Kuebler said this shows him that Gotta has the potential to have a lot more drive in him for the rest of the season.

Senior John Kaiser also had an exceptional race placing 13th with a time of 27:46.  It couldn't have been a more perfect day to do it; the race was also on his birthday.

The team's top runner Bill Jones continued his excellence, placing second with a time of 26:31.

"We have so much depth that although people are recovering from illness and injuries we are still relatively competitive and have not quite hit our potential yet," Kuebler said.

Senior Sara Mueller has improved greatly since last year and had an outstanding race placing seventh out of 129 runners in the women's 5-kilometer race with a time of 20:14. Even though sophomore Nicole Krajewski was recovering from a cold all week she placed eighth with a time of 20:21.

"The women's team looked a lot stronger in the last mile, which is great to see," Kuebler said. "Nobody went out too fast and everybody kept a good pace to stay strong throughout."

The women's team had strong races from multiple runners throughout the team, propelling them to finish in the top five.

"I am hopeful as we move into October," Kuebler said. "I am looking forward to the races next weekend especially the All Ohio Championships and for part of the team to get a good look at the conference course."

The top seven runners from the men's and women's teams will compete in the All Ohio Championships in Cedarville, Ohio on Sept. 29 and the rest of both teams will run in the Mt. Aloysius Invite in Edensburg, Pa on Sept. 30.