Ohio had a solid outing this weekend as its men’s and women’s cross country teams traveled to Terre Haute, Indiana, to take place in Pre-Nationals.
The men and women both had strong races with the men finishing in second out of 20 teams, only behind IUPUI in its race. The women finished 12th out of 26 teams, a huge improvement from last week where the men finished in 20th and the women in 28th.
The most impressive runner for the Bobcats was junior Josh Park, who ran a 24:46.3 in the 8K race, which was good enough to finish second overall out of 130 total runners.
Other men from Ohio who raced well include Griffin Butler. The junior, who just received Mid-American Conference Male Athlete of the Week honors, ran a 25:30.0, good to finish 20th. Senior Erik McKean (25:43.9) and junior Matthew Agosta (25:52.2) also finished in the top 40.
The women saw a few top 50 finishers of their own. In the 6K race, redshirt senior Madison Sury ran a 21:58.7, which was good enough to finish 35th out of 169 total runners in the race. Junior Haley Bowes continued her decent season, too, and finished with a time of 22:14.5, good enough to come in 43rd on the day.
This was only the second time this year that the women’s team competed in a 6K race. They’ve mostly raced in 5Ks this season, so this weekend provided an extra challenge, and they were up to the task.
Ohio will be in action next on Nov. 2 in Dekalb, Illinois, for the MAC Championships.
