The University of Chicago men’s and women’s cross country teams look forward to their fifth competition this season on Saturday. Both teams will be competing at the Lucian Rosa Invitational at University of Wisconsin–Parkside in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The men’s and women’s cross country teams look to improve on solid performances at the Illinois Intercollegiate Meet last Friday. The men’s team placed fourth out of 13 teams in total, while the women’s team finished in first place. Notable performances on the men’s side include third-year Peter Kreuch, who finished in 10th place with a time of 26:42.3, and first-year Tim Koenning, who finished in 12th place with a time of 26:45.0. The men are currently ranked 31st in DIII with 34 points and want to continue to build upon their early success this season. The men’s team finished in first place in both the St. Francis Invitational and the Aurora Invitational and the team hopes to return to the top of the podium this weekend. Expect Kreuch and Koenning to lead the men’s team to victory this Saturday.
Meanwhile, the women’s cross country team dominated this past Friday, with five runners completing the race in the top 10. Third-year Khia Kurtenbach led the women to victory and finished in second place with a time of 18:27.2. Coming in behind Kurtenbach, third-year Kelsey Dunn finished in fourth place and fourth-year Michelle Dobbs finished in fifth place with times of 18.59.2 and 18:59.9, respectively.
Third-year Cassidy McPherson, who placed eighth at the Illinois Intercollegiate with a time of 19:06.3, mentioned, “We have a very competitive meet next weekend in Oshkosh, so we are using the meet at Parkside to finalize our roster for Oshkosh.” The team can only bring 12 men and 12 women to the Oshkosh meet, so Chicago runners must bring their A-game to the Lucian Rosa Invitational. McPherson also said, “This weekend will be a really good opportunity for some freshmen on the women’s team to step up and try to earn a spot on the roster for next week,” which shows that the team is not afraid to put its best 12 runners out there. The women, who are ranked 20th in the country for DIII with 122 points, are going into this weekend confident that they can pull off a victory.
For both teams, the transition into school early last week has definitely made their jobs much more complicated, but McPherson stated that practices have gone very well thus far. The teams have adjusted to their new schedules and now look to focus on the tasks at hand. First, they must prove victorious at the Lucian Rosa Invitational and then they must prepare for the battle to come at the Wisconsin–Oshkosh AAE Invitational on October 15.
The race begins this Saturday, October 8, with the men’s 8K starting at 10 a.m. and the women’s 6K commencing an hour later at 11 a.m.
