UW Oshkosh hosted its second consecutive cross country meet on Friday, with the men taking third place and the women not placing due to lack of participating runners.
For the men, Oshkosh had nine runners attached in the meet, with six runners finishing in the top 30 overall. There were 64 runners in the event and all nine Titans finished in the top 46.
UWO Sophomore Bennett Krueger was the top runner for Oshkosh, finishing 17th. Junior Nathan Nozzi was next up at 19th, freshman Nick Engels finished 23rd and sophomore Corbin Bevry took home 28th place.
Senior Trevor Faldet took 29th place, sophomore Adian Welsch finished 30th and freshman Henry Laste was 32th. Freshman Collin Borazo finished 34th and freshman Isaiah Sample rounded up the results for the Titans with a 46th-place finish.
Freshman Joe Zack said with both teams resting most of their top runners for next week’s Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championship meet, depth in both teams is important to their success.
“[The team] believe[s] it is important to have faith in each other no matter class standing,” Zack said. “But the importance of this is apparent in our upperclassmen showing up to the races where our younger guys are running. By cheering them on, supporting [them] and being able to [help] in their development as athletes, while also trying to emulate the [program’s] characteristics is an exciting and important process.”
The women only had two runners for this meet due to the upcoming WIAC Championship next weekend in Stevens Point. Freshmen Ashlyn Schwind and Breanna Van Den Plas were the two Titan runners in the Open.
Schwind took home top honors for Oshkosh, finishing in seventh place. Van Den Plas finished in 15th place to round out the Titans’ runners.
Van Den Plas said with this meet having mostly freshman runners for Oshkosh, team development is key, especially for the upcoming championship.
“It is very important to me that the upperclassmen have faith that I will reach my potential throughout my college [career],” Van Den Plas said. “Although I have been running cross country for three years [before] college, our mileage was different, our race lengths were different and the environment itself was a lot different. Coming into college athletics, I knew it would be difficult, but because I love running, I knew it was worth trying.”
Even with only two runners running for the women’s team, head coach Eamon McKenna said they have enough depth to be able to rest some runners for bigger events.
“We [somewhat] need to build depth on each side,” McKenna said. “But we have enough depth where we can allow our top runners to train and take weeks off from racing [which allows them to focus on specific training and saves them from mental wear and tear] while allowing our back end runners to be competitive in some smaller meets.”
A number of runners ran personal records and the top five guys will represent the team at the Conference Championship this Saturday.
McKenna said both teams were able to use the Oshkosh Open as a stepping-stone for success while resting up for the upcoming WIAC Championship meet.
“[The Open was] a race-off for the men’s team to fill out our conference lineup,” McKenna said. “We knew we were using the race to chase PRs and were not worried about the team score.”
As for the women’s team, McKenna said the race was used for younger runners to gain more experience before conference.
“Our top runners in each gender were able to do a very quality workout Friday in order to help prepare them for the championship portion of the season,” McKenna said.
Both teams will be running at the WIAC Championships on Saturday Oct. 29. The women start at noon and the men start at 1 p.m.
