By Joel Fuzo / The Jambar
The Youngstown State University men’s and women’s cross country teams finished its second event Sept. 20 at the Roy Griak Invitational Men’s Gold 8K race in Minneapolis, placing seventh overall.
Reigning Horizon League champion and fifth-year senior Hunter Christoper, debuted his season with a time of 25:05.4 — the third fastest in the race.
Christopher explained the team’s preparation before the race.
“We’ve been running a lot, new kinds of workouts that we have never done before. It’s more of a difficult approach compared to last year just because the expectations are a lot higher this year so we’re preparing to run better a lot later,” Christopher said.
Three Penguins placed in the top 50, as senior Thomas Caputo finished in 32nd, sophomore Owen Brady placed 36th overall and graduate student Ryan Meadows came in 44th place.
Meadows shared his views on the meet after the team’s fourth place start in the 55th Annual Tommy Evans Invitational on Aug. 30.
“Cross country is all about how you perform in November at the regional meet and this being early on in September, we’re just kinda looking to shake off the rust and just [get] back to competing and getting our season started,” Meadows said.
Meadows also gave details on how the terrain could impact the race.
“It will definitely be a bit more challenging than what we have been running on. Roy Griak is a very hilly course, but our regional meet in Akron is very hilly, so that’s kinda the whole point of going to this meet, to get us prepared,” Meadows said.
Head Coach Brian Gorby talked about some of his runners before the meet.
“We brought the whole entire championship team back from last year. They’ve won two in a row and again this group just keeps getting better,” Gorby said. “We got incredible guys like Meadows, Caputo and of course Christopher. Those guys along with coach [Eric] Rupe are just locked in and pretty much understand the focus of this season,” Gorby said.
YSU took first place at their Inaugural Alumni Cross Country Meet, winning the women’s 5K race during their first event at their new home venue.
The charge was led by sophomore McKinley Fielding, finishing in second place individually with a time of 17:51.58.
Freshman Caleigh Richards finished in third place individually with her time of 18:21.32.
Gorby shared some of his excitement about his runners before the meet.
“On the women’s side McKinley Fielding was again one of our top runners, our number 1 runner at Akron and she’s come on. Calleigh Richards of course as a freshman was pretty strong for us as well, Jenna Razavi, but then again those 3 looked good in practice and looked good again in the first meet,” Gorby said.
In fifth place was junior Jenna Razavi, timed at 18:54.28.
Junior Molly Hopple landed in 17th, freshman Megan Stafford in 23rd, Caylee Mackey 32nd and Cecelia Chase 35th.
Youngstown State cross country will compete in the Joe Piane Notre Dame Cross Country Invitational in South Bend, Indiana on Oct. 4.
