CROSS COUNTRY

The HU men’s cross country team brought home a first place finish from Purdue Fort Wayne’s Rumble in the Fort Friday night at The Plex. After a two-hour weather delay and competing without their top runner in Adrien Gentie, the Foresters outran the host Mastodons and another NCAA Division I program in Wright State to claim the title.

“Being competitive with winning against NCAA Division I competition is a testament to the hard work these men and women have put in throughout the past year,” said Coach Johnson.

HU finished with 52 points followed by Purdue Fort Wayne (61), Wright State (64), Michigan-Dearborn (69) and Indiana Tech (79). The Foresters posted a collective time of 32:20.01.50.

Haile Stutzman paced Johnson’s crew by clocking in at 27:06.20 to claim second overall out of 66 runners. Another rookie in Kent Yoder finished fourth in 27:20.70. Elijah Chesterman took ninth in 27:50.70. Rounding out Huntington’s scoring by finishing 18th and 19th respectively was Luke Zeddis (28:43.20) and Matthew Hyter (29:00.90).

Other runners for HU included Kody Ahrens (33rd, 30:02.60), Michael Cheezan (34th, 30:21.50), Nick Childs (30:34.00), Justin Ayers (31:43.10) and Tristen Comer (32.56.90).

On the women’s side, Hannah Stoffel took control of the race to win by nearly 20 seconds. The junior transfer posted a winning time of 17:30.30m which also proved a new course record, to guide her team to a second-place finish overall.

Saige Norris was next for the Foresters to register a 19:33.80 good for fourth place out of 55 runners. Molly Mitchell finished sixth in 19:36.90 for sixth place. Crossing the line 14th in 20:24.30 was Mara McFarland while Olivia Von Gunten rounded out HU’s scoring with her 23rd place finish in 21:16.60.

Other runners for Huntington included Sydney Kallem (28th, 21:54.00), Isabel Hunter (31st, 22:14.90), Erin Manchess (22:23.50), Lauren Craig (22:51.20), Emma St. Peters (23:57.60), Hannah Richer (24:30.40), Maleah Ruder (26:19.00) and Madison Glinz (32:50.80).

Wright State took the title with 27 points followed by HU (48), Indiana Tech (68), Purdue Fort Wayne (106), And Michigan-Dearborn (115).

Overall, I was not pleased with the level of competitiveness of many of the athletes,” noted Johnson. “They were tired from a hard week of training and many let that affect them mentally.

“To be at the level we want to be, we need to learn to race well on tired legs so we can put in the work needed work after week. We had a significant weather significant delay because of lightning and a large number of them did not handle the storm delay well.

“That is something we need to be more prepared for going forward and will handle better in the future. The men’s team got the job done even with two of our top five not racing and the other three of our top five doing workouts within the race.”

Johnson was pleased with several individual performances. “Our fifth runner, Matt Hyter, really competed well. On the women’s side, Hannah executed her workout very well and was still able to come away with the win in a course record time. Emma St. Peters also competed very well.”

The Foresters have a few weeks off before competing in the Loyola Lakefront Classic on September 28.