SHELBYVILLE, IN. --- The men's and women's cross country teams travel to Shelbyville, Indiana Friday afternoon to compete in the Mount Saint Joseph Run with the Lions. The men's team had an outstanding race finishing first with 25 points just a head of Hanover University. Boyce College out of Louisville was a distant third. Runners from Spaulding and Mt. Saint Joseph also competed but did not have enough participants to score as a team.
The men's competition was close from the starting gun all the way to the finish line. Will Durrance ran stride for stride with the top runner from Hanover for the entire 5 mile distance. As they came into the final stretch Will briefly inched ahead but faltered in the final couple of steps to be outleaned by just three tenths of a second. Still, his time of 26:50.3 made him the 13th fastest performer in school history.
Wes Preston and Davis Brown ran strongly to claim third and fourth in the race, but the drama for the team victory unfolded after their finish. After three miles, Hanover seemed the have the race well in hand with a large group of runners ahead of the Eagles remaining scorers. In the final mile, Luke Wheatley and Jacob Seawright rose to the challenge and broke up the Hanover pack and secured the win for the team.
"Luke and Jacob we're fantastic in the second half of the race", said Coach Randy Crist, "really gutsy efforts. Luke flew down the final straightaway like a 400 meter runner, passing a couple of the Hanover guys and giving us our margin of victory."
In addition to the win, the men's team had an additional reason to celebrate. Their team time (combined effort of the five scoring runners) easily qualified them for the NCCAA National Championship competition in Joplin, MO on November 11.
The Lady Eagles, however, had a little tougher time with Hanover. Carolina Trumpower and Ava Miller cruised to a comfortable 1-2 finish, but like in the men's race, Hanover was in control of the team race with the next group of runners. Sarah Yost, Della Nevitt, Katherine Stanley moved up throughout the race but in the end it wasn't quite enough. Hanover hung on for a 27-29 margin of victory.
Carolina'S 6K time was sufficient to qualify her individually for the National meet, but the lady's team came up an agonizing one second short of what they needed for a team qualification.
"We ran well today" said Coach Crist, "Anytime you lose by just a point or two you think about where you could have made up the difference, but when everyone runs a good race you just have to let it go".
"For the ladies to come so close to a national team qualifying time was a little disappointing, but we really trained through this meet, so we are confident that we will get the time we need in one of our next two competitions when we come in with fresher legs."
See race results with this link.
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The Eagles are next in action on October 1 at Tom Sawyer Park in Louisville. This competition is normally one of the largest meets in the country with over 150 schools competing in the three divisions.
