The UW Oshkosh men’s and women’s cross-country teams competed at the UW-Eau Claire Blugold Invitational on Sept 29, with the men finishing eighth out of 30 teams and the women placing 10th out of 25 teams.

Sophomore Paul Proteau finished with a time of 25:10 for an eighth-place finish in the men’s race. Junior Cyna Madigan placed 31st with a time of 23:33 in the women’s race. Proteau would be the only Titan to place inside the top 10 this race along with a second-consecutive season best.

Eamon McKenna, the head coach of the team, would describe this as a much more competitive race than the previous races this year.

“We were looking forward to this meet as the first real test of the season.” McKenna said. “Unfortunately, we are not yet at full strength, which led to some disappointment.  We tried to be more ready for this meet in terms of being a bit fresher and ready to go, but we did not perform as well as we would have liked as a whole.”

Despite the perceived setback Mckenna still saw the race as a success with many successes for individual runners.

“A number of our runners did a much better job in terms of being patient and consistent throughout the race and they were rewarded with some personal records.” Mckenna said.

New personal records were set by sophomore Joe Freng, freshman Alex Peterson, and freshman Jason Skinkis in the men’s race along with sophomore Jamie Catania, freshman Zoe Watson, sophomore Ella Galaszewski, sophomore Paige Hagner, and freshman Lexi Hall in the women’s race.

This coincides with a high overall morale and consistency in practice that Mckenna describes.

“Practice has been going fairly well overall,” Mckenna said. “The teams enjoy training together and they push each other while having a good time.” 

Now a third of the cross country season is over the Titans look to recuperate from injuries and prepare for the approaching end of season Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference meet. 

“I remain cautiously optimistic about our season, but we have had some of our top runners miss some meets due to injury,” McKenna said. “We will need to be at full strength to realistically attack our goals.” 

The next race for the Titans is Oct. 7 for the Lawrence University Gene Davis Invitational. The women’s race begins at 11 a.m. followed by The men’s race at noon.