Slippery Rock cross country took first place in both the men’s and women’s courses at Edinboro’s Doug Watts XC Course for the second time this year.
After their wins during the Doug Watts Open on Sept. 7, The Rock returned to similar success last Friday at the Edinboro Invitational.
The teams had a bigger challenge this time around though, as the men were without three-time All-PSAC runners Troy Hart and Devon Navaroli, and the women missed seven-time PSAC Champion Anna Igims and 2023 All-PSAC Ruthie Hughes.
If it was not sweet enough already, the wins also served as rivalry victories when both squads finished ahead of Indiana University (Pa.)
Women’s 6-kilometer race
The Rock’s women scored 49 points, besting second-place Edinboro University by eight points. The Fighting Scots runners took first and fourth place individually, but The Rock’s fifth-placing runner was the only fifth-scorer to place within the top 25.
The women’s side placed two athletes within the top 10 with Jennifer Cichra at second and Morgan Dennison at eighth. Carissa Flynn, Maddie Grillo and Hannah Burgoon rounded out the White and Green’s first five finishers.
Cichra ended with a time of 23:15.54, nine seconds behind first-place Kate Szep of Edinboro.
Tatiana Holt was just under six seconds behind Burgoon and made six Rock runners within the top 15 finishers.
All six, and 18th place finisher Lydia Valeriano, crossed the line in under 25 minutes.
Men’s 8-kilometer race
The men’s team tallied the best point-total of the event at 40. They took first in a similar fashion to the women’s team. Second-place West Liberty University scored second and fifth place individually, but all of Slippery Rock’s scoring runners placed within the top 14, giving them an eight-point edge over the Hilltoppers.
John Juszynski scored first for SRU at 26:05.6. The Rock men’s first five were rounded out by Ryan Czechowski, Eli Schreiber, Michael Gauntner and Easton Adamczyk.
Tucker Davis, Joey Cintavey, Dom Bumblis and Michael Novak joined them in the top 25 of individual finishers. All nine ran times under 28 minutes.
Juszynski and Czechowski both placed in the top 10, at sixth and seventh respectively. Despite this, their point totals were four and five because the individual first and fourth place runners were unattached from a team and therefore not scoring runners for any school.
This invite served as The Rock’s final meet prior to the championship meets. SRU now has just under two weeks to ready for this year’s Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Championships.
The races will take place at Kutztown University’s North Campus XC Course in Kutztown, Pa. on Oct. 26, starting at 11:00 a.m.
Following the PSAC Championships, qualifiers will prepare for the NCAA Atlantic Region Championships and NCAA National Championships. The former occurs in Lock Haven, Pa., while the latter will be held in Sacramento, Calif.
