The University of Northern Iowa men’s cross country team finished fourth, and the women finished seventh at the Missouri Valley Conference championships Saturday, Oct. 31.
The two teams traveled to Peoria, Ill., to compete for the MVC Championship, which was hosted by Bradley University. The track was set up at Newman Golf Course. The men ran an 8K race and the women ran a 5K race. Both tracks consisted mostly of rolling hills.
The men finished a spot higher than predicted and were led by Thibault Vandenabeele. Vandenabeele was the cross country player of the week for the conference the previous week and led his team with a 15th place individual finish.
The next runner, Alex Mark, finished two seconds behind Vandenabeele to finish at 17th place. The other men that were running, excluding Thibault and Alex, were Brett Egan, David Nielson, Brady Fritz, Ryan Krogmann, Aaron Vosberg and Andrew Nelson.
The top four men from UNI all finished in the top 30 out of 72 competitors. The men finished seventh last year, so the team is showing a lot of promise. Indiana State University ended up winning the men’s championship and knocked off the defending champion and favored Southern Illinois University squad.
The women’s side ended up as predicted for UNI. The women were led by Danielle Nowasell with a 14th place finish individually. The other women that were running were Lindsey Wilkins, Carly Olsen, April Davidshofer, Jill Lageshulte, Scotti Schon, Hattie Buikema and Jessa Schweitzer.
Wichita State women won the meet after being favored and winning the title last year. The second place runner on the team, Lindsey Wilkins, is a freshman.
The next competition for the two teams will be the NCAA Midwest Regional Championship in Springfield, Missouri on Nov. 14. The regional championship will be hosted by Missouri State University.
At the Midwest regional in 2008, the women finished 17th of 27 teams. The men’s team did not qualify to go to the regional last year. However they had one runner, senior Mike Clancy, qualify individually and finished 123rd in a 10k race.
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