UB cross country weekly release
10/18/2010 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
Bulls Place in Middle at PSU National Meet
The University at Buffalo's men's and women's cross country teams competed on Saturday at the Penn State National Invitational with both squads finishing in the middle of the pack of their respective races. The UB men finished 18th in a 27-team field with 503 points while the UB women placed 20th in a 31-team field with 592 points. Syracuse (61) and Villanova (26) won the men's and women's team titles, respectively.
Conway Leads Men's Finishers
Dylan Conway paced the UB men with his 86th-place finish in 26:51. Conway has been UB's top men's finisher in each of the three races he's competed in during the 2010 season and he took nearly 30 seconds off the time he posted on the same Penn State course for the season-opening meet on September 11. UB's next four finishers finished within seven seconds of each other. Jacob Hagen was the second finisher for the Bulls with a 27:10 clocking to finish in 122nd place. Mike Gillis was 124th in 27:11. Zach Ahart finished 128th in 27:15 and Ryan Bloom turned in a 27:17 clocking to finish in 132nd place. A total of 266 runners completed the 5.2 mile men's race.
Sanders Paces UB Women
Leading the UB women along the 6K Penn State course was Katie Sanders like she did at the season-opening Spiked Shoe Invitational on the same course. Sanders placed 87th among 304 runners in 22:28, cutting 10 seconds off her time from the September 11 meet. Emma Denton was the second finisher for the Bulls in 22:59 to take 131st place. Rounding out the top five for the UB women were Sam Beim (142nd, 23:04), Christine Sprehe (162nd, 23:16) and Brittany Chilson (166th, 23:18).
Mitchell's Musings
Head coach Vicki Mitchell commented on her team performance following the meet. "The PSU National Invite was an incredibly competitive field, and gave us a glimpse of Miami of Ohio's women, Eastern Michigan's teams, Akron's teams, and Western Michigan women," said Mitchell. "Our women ran very well; all greatly improved their times over our race on this same course on September 11. This is a very objective measurement of improvement in their fitness & racing. On the men's side, the field of 266 men on a narrow course required our men to do a lot of passing over the last three miles of the course. They moved well, and like the women, all greatly improved their times over just four weeks ago. We narrowed the gap to Akron and look forward to competing in the smaller field size at the MAC Championships."
Reif Meet Closes Regular Season
The Bulls travel to Cornell on Friday for the Reif Invitational. "At the Cornell Reif Invite, we will race mostly our "B" squads and look to do some race prep work for the MAC Championships with the next two weeks of training," stated Mitchell.
