“Eleven of the top 14 runners for both the men’s and women’s cross country teams placed in the top-25 for UW Oshkosh at the Gene Davis Invitational on Oct. 7. Seven of the 11 runners were from the men’s squad, pushing the team to its second victory in the last three races, while the women edged out Wisconsin Track Club by two points to earn third.

Men earn gold

For the men, the team’s performance was spearheaded by one freshman and three upperclassmen. Leading the charge was freshman Cody Chadwick, who finished in fourth place, less than one minute behind the leader’s pace. For Chadwick, this marked his highest finish of the season and second top-10 placing.

Behind Chadwick was junior Brian McKnight, the first of three consecutive upperclassmen. In McKnight’s third race of the year, he tied his season-best finish with a seventh-place tally.

The third-highest finisher for the Titans was senior Daniel Massey, who took home 11th place. In fourth was junior Jacob Rost, who ran a 27:20 race to a tune of 13th place.

Rounding out the top five finishers for Oshkosh was freshman Noah O’Neill, who earned his second-highest placing of the year by finishing in 15th place.

Freshman Lucas Weber, who did not run in the Davis Invitational but said he will participate in at least the three guaranteed races to close the season, said the team was successful without running its top runners, which speaks to the team’s depth.

“[The race] was another confidence booster, and we need[ed] to get used to winning,” Weber said. “We knew once again there was going to be a ton of competition, and normally we do not run our top guys at this [meet]. It helped us get used to [different] efforts and get used to hurting.”

In total, the Titans had 12 runners participate in the meet and all 12 finished in 34th place or better. There were 95 runners who finished the race from eight total teams.

Head coach Eamon McKenna said being able to have a good amount of runners travel and compete in a meet is important to the cohesion and development of the team.

“Traveling with the full team to most meets is awesome, no matter when it is,” McKenna said. “It helps build camaraderie, it allows everyone on the team to learn about one another, and people become more familiar with their teammates’ personal records and other meaningful running statistics, as well. The more often we can race as one team, the more familiar on the course the student athletes become with each other, which allows them to become more comfortable racing as a pack.”

Running for the men’s squad but not placing were freshmen Austin Baker, Andrew George, Noah Bruehl, Skyler Yunk and Spencer Muffler, junior Bennett Krueger and sophomore Jack Rindahl.

Muffler earned top honors for this group, finishing in 17th place, while Yunk trailed him by seven seconds in 18th place. Krueger, the lone upperclassman in this grouping, was next and placed in 21st place with a time of 27:55.

George, Bruehl and Rindahl all came next, in 23rd, 24th and 25th places respectively. This was the best finish of the season so far for all three runners.

Women take home bronze

All seven runners finished in the top-41 spots in Saturday’s meet, which also tied the team’s best finish of the year so far, matching its placing at the Tom Hoffman Invitational in September.

Freshman Hannah Lohrenz took home top honors for the squad, earning her best finish of the season in seventh place.

Supporting Lohrenz’s performance were four underclassmen, freshmen Reece Matheson and Erica Liesen and sophomores Ashton Keene and Amanda Van Den Plas.

For the freshmen, Matheson’s 19th-place finish was her second-best of the year, and 20th place went to Liesen, which was her personal best. Keene led this group with a season-best 13th place finish, while Van Den Plas earned 31st in only her second race of the season.

Outside of the obvious physical attentiveness that cross country requires, Keene said to succeed, runners need to be mentally focused as well to ensure peak performance.

“Racing takes practice,” Keene said. “We could do lots of miles and hard workouts, but the mindset of actually competing cannot be fully emulated in just practice. There’s an extra level of mental focus that is needed, and so getting the experience of racing more often is invaluable.”

Freshman Lexus Brown, senior Jessica Stamn and sophomores Tayah Cunningham and Melissa Srnka rounded out the runners for the Titans in Appleton.

For Brown, her 38th-place finish was the best of her brief career, while Stamn bested her season-leading finish by five positions, taking home 35th place.

Cunningham and Srnka finished in 36th and 41st place, respectively. This was Cunningham’s second-highest tally of the season, behind her 27th-place finish at the Hoffman Invite, and Srnka beat her previous-best by 14 spots.

Upcoming for the Titans are two home meets, the first being on Oct. 14. Oshkosh is hosting the UW Oshkosh Kollege Town Sports Invitational at the Lake Breeze Golf Club in Winneconne.”