Dubbed by Ohio runners as the season's biggest meet thus far, the All-Ohio Championships also proved to be the season's toughest meet, both in competition and course difficulty.
The cross country teams recorded their slowest times of the season at Saturday's All-Ohio meet but still finished in a satisfactory position, several runners said.
Finishing third for the women's team, runner Lauren Birnie said this was the first time the Bobcats had seen a significant amount of hills on a cross country course all season, and that might have factored into where the team finished.
It was a really tough course
she said. We've run pretty much all flat courses. This was the first time we had to run hills so that was definitely a factor...We haven't trained for hills so that very much had something to do with it.
Runner Andrea Maas continued to be Ohio's top finisher, finishing 19th out of 83 Division-I runners. Other top finishers for the women included Alicia Myers (46), Ali Green (62) and Carly Spellman (63).
For the men, runner Drew Frum suffered an Achilles tendon injury in the second mile, he said, when another runner cleated him on the back of the leg, costing the team at least one place.
Two miles into the race we were in such a tight pack and someone kicked me in the Achilles tendon
Frum said. I'm pleased with our finish for how the race went
but we could have easily been third if we had run the way we could have run.
Making up for Frum's poor performance were runners Austin Schiele, who finished 19th out of 72 Division-I runners, Craig Leon (22) and Brian List (30).
It's coming down to the end of the season and we knew we were going to have a good race
Frum said. Those guys did what they had to do.
With so many teams from the Mid-American Conference participating in the race, the team used this meet as a way to measure against the other schools in the conference, Schiele said.
In the MAC we're feeling really good
he said. We need a good showing at Illinois. If we can run good up there
we'll have no problem running great at MACs and put on a show. We just have to get ready to peak at MACs.
Next for the Bobcats is the Illini Invitational. The meet will held next Saturday in Champaign, Ill. Race times are to be announced.
Women's D-I finishes (top five finishers and final score)
Men's D-I finishes (top five finishers and final score)
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