Oren wins GLIAC title

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Oren wins GLIAC title

Emily Oren wins individual GLIAC title

Coming into Saturday’s GLIAC championship meet, senior women’s cross-country captain Emily Oren knew she had a chance to be individual champion, but she also knew she would have to work for it.
Oren ran a smart race on a difficult 6K course, maintaining contact with the race’s leaders through the first 5K of the race. Then, with one kilometer to go, she took the lead and never looked back.
Oren is Hillsdale’s first GLIAC conference individual champion since Chrissy Garstin in 1996.
“I told myself going in that I was going to make my move on the final two hills,” she said. “So then my last 1K was just a sprint to the finish.”
Oren defeated Grand Valley State University’s top runner — freshman Gina Patterson — as well as last year’s national champion, Kendra Foley, also from Grand Valley. Competition in the GLIAC conference is some of the stiffest in the nation, and Oren’s finish puts her in contention for an individual national title next month.
“Winning conference is something I’ve always wanted to do,” Oren said. “This year I feel like I’m finding my way as a cross-country runner because I’ve always just been good on the track and decent on the cross course.”
Fellow senior Kristina Galat, who will be another runner in contention for next month’s individual national title, placed fourth in the race. Galat was closely followed by sophomore Hannah McIntyre, junior Molly Oren, and freshman Ally Eads in sixth, ninth, and 18th place, respectively.
Although the Charger women came into the race ranked No. 1 in Division II and had defeated Grand Valley twice in previous meets, they fell just short. Last year’s D-II national champion Kendra Foley, who had missed the first part of the season due to injury, returned to place third in the race.

Hillsdale has now dropped to second in the Midwest Regional rankings and third in the USTFCCCA Coaches Poll.
“We were happy with our effort, but not satisfied with the result,” said Head Coach Andrew Towne.
Head distance coach Joe Lynn was happy with how his team battled in the race, but believes they can improve by starting the race more aggressively.
“The loss was close enough on Saturday that if one girl goes five seconds faster, one goes two-tenths, and another goes nine seconds faster, we win,” Lynn said.
The men’s team placed eighth of 15 teams, with junior captain Joe Newcomb and sophomore Tony Wondaal both earning All-GLIAC honors, placing 19th and 20th.
Leaving everything on the course, the team sprinted out with the race leaders from the gun. The course’s punishing hills, however, eventually caught up with the men and many struggled on the last couple miles.
Newcomb credits Wondaal with helping him finish the race strong.
“I don’t know if I would have been All-Conference if Tony hadn’t been pushing me,” Newcomb said.
Despite struggling in the second half of the race, the men were only 23 points away from fifth  place and Lynn saw a lot of positives in the team’s performances.
“I think we raced like a young team,” Lynn said. “For a lot of guys, that was their first GLIAC racing experience.”
Lynn was proud of how Newcomb and Wondaal battled, but thought the team’s No. 3 runner, junior Caleb Gatchell, had the biggest breakthrough, running his personal best 8K time.
“I think we broke a major wall down with how he finished the second half of that race,” Lynn said.
Sophomore Sam Phillips and junior Luke Daigneault rounded out the Chargers’ top five.
Although his team’s eighth place finish wasn’t what he wanted, Newcomb is hopeful that the team will continue to grow.
“Obviously we have a young team which makes us excited about what we can do next year,” Newcomb said.
Over the next two weeks, the men’s and women’s teams will maintain the intensity of their training while cutting down on mileage to keep themselves fresh for the Midwest Regional Meet on Nov. 7.
The women are expected to advance to the D-II national meet, while the men are considered a long-shot.