The Slippery Rock men’s and women’s cross country teams placed 12th and seventh at the Lock Haven Invite this past Saturday.
The men finished 12th out of 32 other teams this past weekend and scored 335 points. The women placed seventh out of 37, scoring 272 points. The men were led by redshirt junior John Marenkovic III as he finished 33rd in the 8,000-meter race in 26:19. For the women, Senior Kacey Raible placed 32nd in the 6,000-meter race in 22:39.
Following Marenkovic, senior Trenton Yoder finished in 26:55 to place 63rd. Senior Daniel Janyska would follow behind in 27:04 to place 74th. Freshman Ethan Brentham finished in 27:19 for 93rd overall, and sophomore Benjamin Buckless finished in 27:31 to place 107th to finish out the scoring for the men.
“There were a lot of really good teams there and we gave a pretty good effort. I’m pleased with the progress of the team,” SRU coach John Papa said.
For the women, senior Jill Norris finished second for SRU and placed 48th in 23:03. Behind her was sophomore Lexie Firment as she finished in 23:09 to finish 52nd overall. Senior Katie Proffitt and junior Juilet Ryan rounded out the scorers for The Rock as Proffitt placed 81st in 23:44 and Ryan finished 93rd in 23:55.
“I was thinking the ladies were going to finish anywhere around ten to 15th,” Papa said. “They beat a few teams that I didn’t really know much about. So I didn’t know what we were going to do, but they had a really good effort as well.”
The men and women will have time to prepare before traveling to Colorado for the Roadrunner Invitational Oct. 5.
“We’ll see. When you travel the day before, it’s kind of rough, but we are going to go there and compete and there are some nationally ranked teams there that, on paper, we can not compete with, but you never know,” Papa said.
