The men’s and women’s cross-country teams started the season off strong, with both squads defeating Saginaw Valley at the teams’ first meet last Friday at Hayden Park. The women had a perfect score of 15 points, claiming the top five places, while the men won with 19 points, taking the top three places.
Although still very early in the season, the women remained second in the rankings. The men remain unranked.
Distance coach Joe Lynn was pleased with what he saw, but still highlighted areas the teams need to grow in.
“Starting with the ladies it was really solid and what we were looking for,” he said. “On the men’s side our front three looked really controlled. We have some work to do after that.”
The women ran a 4K race, which was two kilometers shorter than they would run in a typical meet. Still, the effort was impressive because of the day’s high temperatures and the hilly terrain of Hayden Park.
All 11 of the women racing finished within 70 seconds of one another, and the top seven finished within 26 seconds of each other. The amount of time between the first and last scoring runners is an important indicator of how good a team is and is something that the women will try to shrink throughout the season.
Lynn was pleased with how well the women ran together and believes that the team’s ability to run together is what will be the difference in their success this year.
“We have some good runners up front obviously,” Lynn said. “But having some girls that can push them is important to not make us just a front loaded team, but a deep team.”
Senior captain Emily Oren was also pleased with how her teammates performed in their first race.
“I think everyone stepped up and did awesome. We were all together as a pack, which was so fun,” she said.
The men were scheduled to run a 6K race, which is also two kilometers shorter than they would typically run, but due to race error they ran less than 5 and 1/2 kilometers.
There was a wider gap between men’s finishers than there was on the women’s side. The first Charger crossed the line 2:15 before the last runner. But, there was a much smaller gap between the men’s top seven: only 28 seconds. Additionally, the men were without junior Luke Daigneault who, according to Lynn, is expected to be a strong contributor when he races with the team within the next month or so.
Although they beat the Saginaw Valley men, the Chargers benefited from Saginaw running without some of their top runners. Lynn believes that future competitions between the two teams will be much closer than Friday’s race.
Junior Caleb Gatchell, who won the men’s race, was happy with how the team ran.
“I thought it was good. We got out there and put a good effort in,” he said.
Lynn was pleased with the progress shown by the freshmen on both teams.
“Ally Eads and Lucy Allen are going to add some great depth to us this year,” he said. “I felt Isaac Harris looked pretty good.”
Because the men have a younger team, Lynn believes that the freshmen will play a big role.
“We’re a little bit younger on the guys’ side, so we’re going to have to count on our freshmen this year. Those guys will definitely be great assets to us,” Lynn said.
Hillsdale’s next meet is Friday, Sept. 18, in East Lansing on Michigan State University’s golf course. The meet will be much more competitive than the first meet as a number of teams from NCAA Division I and the NAIA will be in attendance.
Although time is not the most important factor in cross country, Lynn is excited about the meet because of how fast the course is.
“It will be a nice change for ladies and guys, and a chance to really open up a little bit, especially for our speedsters.”
Correction: Previously, we incorrectly said that the Charger women had dropped to number five in the national rankings. That is in fact incorrect, and they are still ranked second.