The female Yeorunners got a leg up on their regional competition this Saturday, finishing with a second place tie at the Great Lakes Colleges Association Meet, hosted by Kenyon College.
Four Yeowomen placed in the top 25 in the nine team race, which featured some of Oberlin’s biggest North Coast Athletic Conference opponents, while the men made a strong showing as well, finishing seventh out of 10 teams with two top-25 finishers.
The women’s 65 points put them 14 behind first-place finisher Denison University, while the men trailed sixth-place Wabash College by 16.
“We’re rocking the house,” junior Julia Goeke said of the team’s performance.
Goeke was one of Oberlin’s top finishers, completing the course in 20:22 for a seventh-place finish, second on the team only to senior Laura Feeney’s 20:09 for second place.
Seniors Lori Tuchfield and Kyle McKenzie finished within nine seconds of each other for 16th and 19th place, respectively, while sophomore Shannon Morris rounded out Oberlin’s top five finishers at 29th.
“We have a really strong top five,” Goeke said, “but we have a good tight pack from six to 10, too. I’m incredibly confident about the team.”
Oberlin’s good times were more impressive because of the race’s conditions.
“It was a pretty slow course that day,” senior Adam Greeney said. “Pretty humid. But we ran pretty well.”
Greeney was Oberlin’s top male finisher, placing 11th with a time of 28:26. He was followed by junior Alex Scally, whose time of 29:10 earned him 23rd place.
Greeney did not want to place too much emphasis on the meet.
“It’s such an early-season meet that it doesn’t mean too much,” he said. What was important was that “we got to stack ourselves up against the other teams. We were up against what’s going to be our competition.”
The cross country teams will have some time off from competition this weekend, before they hit the trail again against conference opponents in a meet at the College of Wooster on Saturday, Sept. 28. The Yeorunners will prepare for the meet by running Wooster’s course this weekend.
With regard to scoring, the women’s team currently looks solid. The men’s team has had consistent finishes from one to three, but “we’re going to hope to bring our four and five up to our three spot,” Greeney said.
If they can do that, both teams will be off and running toward the conference meet.