As another Saturday rolled along, so did the LHU River Run in Lock Haven Pa. The men’s cross country team however, finished just fifth place out of six teams.
Just like last weekend in Kutztown, the Rams were able to keep a narrow margin between their early runners crossing the line. Unfortunately, these runners were still a little farther behind than head coach Andrew Huber would have liked. “We need to be a lot faster as a team if we are going to be successful in the post-season.”
One hundred and fifteen runners crossed the line for their schools and eight of them were Golden Rams. Curran Kneebone led the way for West Chester with an 18th place finish with a time of 26:57.00. This time earned him a spot in the record books as the fifth place WCU runner on this course in the school’s history.
As for the rest of the West Chester team, Zack Musselman finished 20th overall which was good enough for seventh place all time in WCU history. Jake Perry followed close behind, finishing 28th, and setting a WCU record at tenth place for this course. Chris Bucci finished 36th, Sean Sebeck 40th, Jake Barnett 51st, Cody Borders 53rd and Adam Farence 79th.
The women’s cross country team was also in action on Saturday, just not the kind of action that Coach Huber was particularly proud of.
“I don’t think we raced as well as a team as we did in our first two races. We’ll have to do a lot better in the coming weeks if we want to accomplish goals.”
There were definitely some bright spots for the women. Kathleen Casey had another great outing and stayed with some of the top runners in the conference. The women’s team, loaded with freshmen, got another strong performance from the younger runners.
West Chester was led by Kathleen Casey who finished sixth place overall out of 110. Nicole De Gross and Brittany Boyer finished within two minutes of Casey for 32nd and 40th respectively. The rest of the women all managed to finish the race in less than 30 minutes. Kim Mcmanus ran for 45th while Trish Evans was right behind in 47th. Leigh Gumlock-Silfies took 50th, Hillary Rights 52nd, Julie Clappsy 53rd, Lindsay Reindi 63rd and Rachel Wynn 79th. The Women finished sixth out of seven teams this weekend.
The weekend may not have went exactly how Coach Huber and his squads anticipated, but rest assured, the teams will be hard at work during practice this week and ready to improve next Saturday for the Paul Short Invitational in Bethlehem Pa. The full schedule can be found at the West Chester Athletics website.
Alex Einhorn is a second year student majoring in writing with a minor in journalism. He can be reached at AE744379@wcupa.edu.