On Friday, Aug. 30, after the first week of classes, the cross country team headed to University Farm for the Bill Sudeck Invitational against John Carroll University. The men’s team defeated John Carroll with a 22-39 win. However, the women’s team lost to the Blue Streaks 24-36.
Despite the heat and humidity, both teams started the season strong. The Spartans took both first-place finishes, with third-year Ashley Novak crossing the finish line with a time of 15:12.49, placing first out of 25 runners in the women’s 4K race, and fourth-year Aidan Nathan dominating the course with a time of 19:08.17, beating 30 runners.
For Nathan, the race wasn’t just a personal achievement, but also a team accomplishment. Their win on Friday was the first time since 2021 that CWRU won the Sudeck Invitational.
“From a team perspective, we just wanted to go out and try and win. It was a tactical race, trying to get used to racing cross country again. It’s been a long summer of not being out there. So it was just kind of do what we can, get everyone back into the flow of things. We have a lot of freshmen, so many—I think we have like 16 total freshmen on the team. So it was just like, get them used to what college cross country is going to feel like, and you know, if I can help by trying to run from the front and have a good score for the team, that’s what I wanted to help do,” Nathan said.
On the men’s team, fourth-year Luke Kishna finished third in 19:41.41 after the second-place Blue Streak runner. After the fourth-place finish by John Carroll, the Spartans followed with six consecutive runners crossing the finish line, solidifying their win. Second-year Finn Bonner finished fifth (19:49.61), followed by first-years Donovan Crowley (sixth, 19:54.39) and Lucas Siepser (seventh, 19:58.63).
Fourth-years Michael Lombardi (eighth, 20:09.97) and Nate Gilbert (ninth, 20:13.47) and second-year Owen Schessler (10th, 20:16.35) rounded out the last of CWRU’s top seven finishes.
Nathan also continued, noting the difficulties they faced during their season-opening race and his hopes for the rest of the season.
“It was a tough day to run. It was pretty hot, really humid, and the course, our farm, is pretty hilly, so especially for the first [race] back, it’s a really tough one to gauge where you’re at. So the times are gonna be slow. You know, you might not have the best day, but I think everyone ran well. Everyone should be happy with where they’re at right now. It’s still really early. There’s still so much that we haven’t done yet, so much better to get, but I think everyone handled it well,” Nathan commented.
For the women’s team, despite Novak’s first-place finish, the team unfortunately was unable to break up the pack of John Carroll runners as they took five consecutive places from fourth to eighth. The rest of the Spartans top seven finishes who added points to the team were third-years Lauren Iagnemma (third, 15:27.38), Arianna Holbrook (ninth, 15:46.60) and Anna Avila (17th, 16:23.27), and first-years Cecilia Postma (13th, 16:11.68), Becca Liaw (14th, 16:14.88) and Ciara Ledford (16th, 16:20.96).
This upcoming weekend, the team will travel to Shelbyville, Indiana for the Grizzly Invitational, where the women’s and men’s teams will run their first 6K and 8K races of the season, respectively. The races in Shelbyville will be held at Blue River Park, which will give the Spartans a peek at the 2024 NCAA Great Lakes Regional course.