OBERLIN, Ohio — With some top runners reunited with the team and others missing due to injury, the FUS men's and women's cross country teams ran against tough competition at the Oberlin College Inter-Regional Rumble, the men finishing 30 out of 33 teams and the women 35 out of 40.
"Oberlin is a pretty fast course, but it was wet and muddy today and pretty torn up from the rain all week," head coach Dan Kuebler said. "We were a little slower because of the conditions."
The Baron's top two runners, junior John Redmond and senior Patrick Flanagan, returned from last week's hiatus to lead the team in the men's varsity 8k, placing one hundred and seventieth and one hundred and seventy-fifth respectively out of 270 runners with times of 28:18.7 and 28:24.5.
Kuebler said he was pleased to have the two runners back but said that the men's team suffered without one of their leading freshmen runners Graham Martin, who led the team last week and is now injured.
"John and Patrick ran well, we just have to do a little bit better job of running as a pack," Kuebler said. "We still haven't had our whole guy's team running together in a while."
Sophomore Emmett Delaney stepped up to take third place for the Barons, finishing two hundred and nineteenth overall with a time of 29:14.4.
The Lady Barons were led in the varsity 6k by junior Sydney Novak who placed 233 of 341 total runners with a time of 26:05.4.
"Sydney ran a lot better than she did last week, so it was nice to see that improvement," Kuebler said, adding that the lead runner has been battling sickness along with the rest of the team. "I was pretty happy with the fact that they ran as well as they did today. We need to get everybody healthy."
The Lady Baron's second and third runners, Colene Smith and Elise Zajicek finished close together, placing two hundred and fifty-second and two hundred and fifty-fifth with times of 26:41.7 and 26:45.4.
As a team, the Lady Barons beat conference rivals, Penn St.-Behrend, despite the absence of senior Allison Huelseman who is out with an injury. Kuebler said he hopes to have Huelseman return for Conference Championships in two weeks.
"If we can get everybody healthy and back in the competition, the women should do pretty well at Conference," Kuebler said.
He added that with the high level of competition in the past three meets, both teams have been pushed to improve but have sometimes been lost in the pack of several hundred top DIII runners. The upcoming, smaller conference meet will give the FUS runners the chance to move up and run well as a team.
Franciscan will host the AMCC Championships for the first time, running on their new cross country course on Saturday, November 1 at 11am.
"We've been pointing ourselves towards Conference and gearing our training towards this meet all season, so we know what to expect," Kuebler said. "We know the course well because we've been training on it all year."
