PITTSBURGH, Pa. – The Carnegie Mellon Invitational gave Franciscan Cross Country the opportunity to test themselves for the second time this season against one of their toughest conference competitors, Penn St. – Altoona. Both team's faired relatively similarly against the Lions as they did at the Fischer Invitational in August.
The Lady Baron runners finished thirteenth out of 19 teams, six spots ahead of a Penn St. – Altoona team that only had four runners finish.
"The women did really well against Penn St. – Altoona," Head Coach Dan Kuebler said about his women's team. "They have a great shot at finishing in at least second in the conference."
The men's team also finished thirteenth out of 19 but ended up six teams behind the Lions. Kuebler said they looked a little fatigued after a particularly hard week of practice.
"They have their work cut out for them against Altoona," Kuebler said. "They need to step their game up in comparison to what they did today."
The invitational threw a number of challenges at FUS including a Schenley Park course that was up hill for almost the entire second half of the race. Despite the course, some of the team's younger members had some of their best races.
"Some of the new runners made great strides today," Kuebler said. "It was a tough last mile of the course but we ran some pretty good times."
First-year runner Leah Kaisler ran her first full race of the year and finished as the fourth best runner for the Lady Barons with a time of 22:22.7. Jack Nash, a sophomore runner for the Barons, also ran particularly strong with a time of 31:37.8, a full two minutes better than previous personal record.
Kuebler said he is looking forward to next week's meet at Oberlin College where the team will have the chance to showcase its talents on a relatively flat course. With the conference championships less than a month away Kuebler said he hopes to see his runner reach their potential over the next few weeks.
FUS will travel to Oberlin for the Intra-Regional Rumble on October 19 at 10:30 am.
