Cross-country nets two top-three finishes at Brooks Invitational

| Senior Sports Editor

Only two-time defending national champion North Central College edged out the No. 3 Washington University men’s crosscountry team at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Brooks Invitational Saturday, and the No. 26 women’s team placed third.

Juniors Drew Padgett and Lucy Cheadle again set the tempo for the Bears, each notching second-place finishes in fields of more than 500 runners. Padgett has been the Bears’ fastest runner in every race this season, and Cheadle has led the women’s squad at all three meets in which she has competed. For Cheadle, the 21:16.47 6,000-meter time was the best of her career outside of last season’s 21:01.35 at the NCAA Midwest Regional Championships.

Padgett set a personal record, as he has become accustomed to doing during this breakout season, with his 24:27.09 8k time

Senior Kevin Sparks finished just behind Padgett in fifth place, and senior Michael Ellenberger snuck into the top 10 in 10th place. Juniors Garrett Patrick and Brett Baker checked in at 29th and 35th, respectively. The Bears’ top seven runners all placed in the top 40 overall.

“It’s a really fast course…so we had tons of personal bests,” Ellenberger said.

The men’s team competed against six other top 25 squads, including No. 1 North Central. While North Central’s team score of 33 points outdid the Red and Green’s 64, the Bears finished well ahead of all other top 25 opponents. No. 14 University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, the third-place team, was closest with 133 points.

Still, Ellenberger believes the team can close the gap with North Central before National Championships next month.

“Coach [Jeff] Stiles told us that if we’re within shouting distance of a team in October, then we still have a pretty good fighting chance against them in November,” Ellenberger said.

In the women’s 6k, freshman Sarah Curci crossed the finish line in 21st place just more than a minute after blazing two-time All-American Cheadle. Sophomore Ellen Toennies placed 28th, followed by senior Elizabeth Worley in 34th and sophomore Bri Tiffany in 48th.

Freshman Annie Marggraff, usually a top-five runner for the Bears, was held out of the meet for precautionary reasons due to a nagging injury.

The Bears narrowly missed out on a second-place team finish, with a score of 124 points just behind conference rival and sixth-ranked University of Chicago’s 120. However, the Red and Green defeated five teams ranked ahead of them, including No. 9 Trinity University, which finished in fourth. No. 8 Calvin College won the meet with 71 points.

The Brooks Invitational marked the final postseason warm-up meet on the Bears’ schedule before University Athletic Association Championships on Nov. 2.

“While it was a bummer not to have beaten [UChicago],” Worley said, “it was kind of a silver-lining, good thing in the sense that moving forward for conference when we’re racing them, we will definitely be looking to beat them and do better.”

All healthy runners race in meets before the conference finals, when only the top seven runners from each team compete. The men’s team has won three straight UAA titles while the three-year run of the women’s team was snapped last season with a fourth-place finish.

“I know it was a bummer for everyone to walk away being fourth,” Worley said. “It was also a tough year—we had lost [teammate Gabby Reuveni]. I was proud of how we finished last year based upon that, but this year, we’ve got a lot of really talented freshmen and a lot of returners who are definitely racing better than they have in the past.”

On the men’s side, senior runners are looking to close their college careers with a UAA title in each season.

“The fact that every year at UAAs we have different lineups—we have different guys on the line—so far we’ve always come away with a victory,” Ellenberger said. “It’s really fun to see different parts of the team contribute every year.”

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