Sept. 17, 2005
Results
Normal, Ill. -
On paper the results may be nothing to get excited about with a second and third place finish at the Illinois Pack Up Challenge hosted by Illinois, but head cross country coach Chris Bailey was pleased with what he saw from his squad.
"When you look at our third place finish on the women's side, it's not something to get excited about," said Bailey. "But I was pleased with how the women ran today. Betsy and Kathleen ran really strong, tough races. With Illinois being in the top fifteen in the nation and the solid freshman running for Loyola, I was pleased to see the two of them finish the way they did."
Illinois defended its home course posting a low 28 points for first place. Loyola topped the Redbirds by only four points to finish second with 44 points. The Redbird's 48 points was good enough for third place while Augustana took fourth with 115 points.
Captain Betsy McDonald finished behind three Illinois runners in fourth place with a time of 18:22.84 in the 5k race. Following McDonald, fellow teammate and freshman Kathleen Thompson was fifth in 18:37.29. Freshman Kim Smudde took 10th place (18:49.40), while Suzy Turner and Maureen Nelligan took the number 14 and 15 slots respectively.
Bailey was pleased with the performances and happy to see improvements from the last race.
"I saw some improvements from last weekend's performances and that's what I was looking for from this meet," said Bailey. "However, I would like to see Suzy and Maureen close the gap and run a tighter race between our top runners."
Not running for the Redbirds this weekend was captain Dan Tripp, Geoff Houtman and Jeremy Doherty who has yet to compete for the `Birds this season.
"I knew we wouldn't be at our best on the men's side with Jeremy, Dan and Geoff not running for us, but this was a good way for some of the other guys to have a chance to compete," said Bailey. "Mike (Richardson) ran well for us today and I would like to continue to see him run with the leaders."
Freshman Mike Richardson led the men's team with an 11th place finish in 26:54.09 on the 8k course. Brian Glaza followed close behind Richardson in 12th place (27:01.46), while Bronco Meeks and Joe Marcin took 14th and 15th.
Illinois took the top 10 places to finish first place with 15 team points. Illinois State finished second with 55 points and Loyola was third (72).
"We ran lot of 800-meter type guys in the race which doesn't typically fare well over the 5,000-meter course," added Bailey. "This was just an opportunity for them to race."
The `Birds will have take next weekend off to continue training and gear up for the Lakefront Invitational hosted by Loyola on Saturday, October 1.
