UWO cross-country finishes 5th in both men’s and women’s races
October 10, 2019
The UW Oshkosh men’s and women’s cross-country teams both placed fifth at the UW-Eau Claire Blugold Invitational on Oct. 4.
The UWO women’s team placed fifth behind Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference foes UW-Eau Claire, who won the event and UW-Stevens Point, who placed fourth with 152 points.
UWO followed with 169 points and was eight points ahead of UW-La Crosse, who took sixth in the 27-team field.
The women were led by senior Ashton Keene who finished in 26th place out of 346 runners with a time of 23:07. Freshman Zanzie Demco followed Keene for the Titans with a 29th-place finish just over 13 seconds behind Keene.
Rounding out the top five for UWO was senior Amanda Van Den Plas, who finished 35th with a time of 23:25, sophomore Elizabeth Reddeman taking home 55th place with a time of 23:52 and freshman Meygan Benzing in 60th with a time of 23:55.
At the halfway point of the race, Oshkosh was in fourth place with 102 points. All five scoring runners for UWO were at least nine spots ahead of their final position halfway.
The men’s race was won by St. Olaf and WIAC opponents UWSP and UWEC finished second and fourth, respectively, out of 29 teams. UWO came in six points behind UWEC with a score of 144.
The Titans finished 19 points ahead of UW-Stout and Luther College who tied for sixth place with the tiebreaker going to Stout.
Sophomore Steven Potter and junior Andrew George placed 16th and 17th, respectively, pacing the Titan runners with times of 25:30 and 25:32.
Junior Cody Chadwick placed 25th, sophomore Andrew Rathkamp placed 36th and freshman Joseph Kehoe placed 52nd.
At the halfway mark of the 10K race, Potter sat in 36th place but soon after, he pushed himself to a 16th-place finish. In contrast, Chadwick was in 11th place at the 5K mark and fell back to finish in 25th place.
UW-Whitewater senior David Fassbender won the race with a time of 24:52.
UWO will next be at the Lawrence University Gene Davis Invitational on Oct. 12 in Appleton before returning home on Oct. 19 for the UW Oshkosh Kollege Town Sports Invitational at Lake Breeze Golf Course in Winneconne.
