oss-country men and women traveled to South Bend, Ind., this past weekend to compete in the University of Notre Dame Cross-Country Invitational.
The men raced five miles and the women 5000 meters. Schools from all three NCAA divisions competed at the meet. Hillsdale was the only GLIAC team at Notre Dame last weekend.
The Hillsdale men placed 8th of 18 teams and the women placed 10th of 15.
Sophomores Joshua Mirth and Matt Perkins led the way for the Hillsdale men. They placed 14th and 15th, respectively.
Mirth’s foot was stepped on at the mile, pulling his shoe half-off and exposing his heel. After a half-mile of hoping the shoe would slip back on, Mirth kicked it off and ran the rest of the race one shoe on, one off. He finished in a time of 25:05, followed closely by Perkins in 25:06.
Sophomore Luke Hickman (55th, 26:05), senior team captain Matt Van Egmond (63rd, 26:18), and freshman John Bell (82nd, 26:35) rounded out the top five, adding up to a team score of 226.
In total, seven of the nine Hillsdale men ran their personal best times at Notre Dame.
Senior team captain Victoria McCaffrey led the women, finishing 22nd in a time of 18:12. Following McCaffrey were freshmen Emily Oren (27th, 18:17) and Kristina Galat (46th, 18:42).
Fifth for the women was junior Chelsea Kilgore (73rd, 19:24), who was running with freshman Kathryn Royer (74th, 19:27). Totaled, the women’s top five scored 236 points, missing 9th by two points.
Head men’s coach Jeff Forino said the men did well. Some of the freshmen ran slower than weeks past; however, Forino said that’s to be expected because of their inexperience with the volume of collegiate training.
“We were expecting to adjust their training a little bit,” Forino said. “[We will] do some stuff this week and then by conference we’ll be will travel to Kenosha, Wisc. this weekend for the UW-Parkside Lucian Rose Invitational – the same course where regionals will be held. The rest of both teams will travel to Calvin College for Michigan Intercollegiates on Oct. 5.