Kuzma and Clark pose with their medals
Courtesy | Anna Roberts
The men’s and women’s cross country teams placed fifth and fourth, respectively, at the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Championships this past Saturday, with sophomore Ally Kuzma taking the individual champion title and earning first team All-GMAC honors in the women’s 6K race.
Executing a personal record performance of 20:29.1, Kuzma became the third Charger woman to win this title in the past three years. Leading up to the championships, Kuzma said she was well aware that she was in the running for the title.
“I was feeling pretty nervous,” Kuzma said. “I knew that I had a shot to win, but there was plenty of talent in the field where it could have gone any way.”
Knowing that she was going to be challenged by intense competition, specifically top runners from Walsh University and Cedarville University, Kuzma said she approached this race with an intentional strategy.
“My plan was to sit and then just kinda go hard the last mile,” Kuzma said. “I knew that because they’re so talented, I really needed to play my strengths, which meant pushing it early so I could build a big enough gap between them and me.”
Head coach R.P. White said he was excited about Kuzma’s performance.
“She’s just a phenomenal runner, and I think this race is just another piece that will help her actualize what her potential is,” White said. “This is just another thing to add to her accolade list in her very young career.”
Junior Eleanor Clark also earned first-team All-GMAC honors with a ninth-place finish in a time of 21:57.5, breaking the 22-minute barrier for the first time.
White said he was not only impressed with Clark’s stellar performance but also with how she helped lead her teammates to success.
“She did a beautiful job leading a couple of her teammates into a really good early position,” White said. “Then she just kept plugging away and ended up sneaking into the first-team all-conference with a huge race.”
Sophomore Victoria Stonebraker was the next scoring runner for the Chargers, earning 26th place in 22:41.9. Freshman Grace Tykocki and junior Savannah Fraley followed in quick succession, earning 39th and 40th place with 23:09.6 and 23:11.1, respectively.
White said he was pleased with the performance he saw on the women’s side.
“They were aggressive and assertive,” White said. “We did a great job plugging ourselves into the positions relative to where we think we could’ve finished.”
On the men’s side, White expressed disappointment about the results but acknowledged that there were added challenges.
“There are multiple teams with much more depth here, so that made things just a little bit different,” White said. “We were challenged getting off the line, and we didn’t do a good job. From our poor position early on, we just couldn’t make up enough ground.”
Senior Gabe Phillips led the Charger men, earning his second first-team All-GMAC honors with a third-place finish in the 8K with a time of 24:16.4. Junior Caleb Youngstedt earned second-team All-GMAC honors, placing 17th in 24:53, while senior Nathaniel Osborne placed 21st in 24:55.9, just shy of all-conference. Two freshmen rounded out Hillsdale’s scoring runners, with John Richardson placing 30th in 25:14.9 and Jefferson Regitz placing 42nd in 25:29.0.
“That race wasn’t a race that played to our strengths very well,” Osborne said. “We were hoping to repeat our team title. That definitely didn’t happen, we didn’t perform in the way we wanted to.”
However, the team is ready to bounce back and confident in their ability to do so.
“We’re looking forward to regionals,” Osborne said. “I think regionals has a course that really plays to our advantage.”
Both the men’s and women’s teams will compete at the NCAA Division II Regional Championships in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Nov. 8.
