The Gustavus men’s cross country team finished its 2011 season with a 13th place finish at the NCAA Central Region Meet on Saturday in Waverly, Iowa with a total of 346 points. Nebraska Wesleyan and St. Olaf qualified for the national meet finishing in first and second, respectively. Nebraska tallied 93 points, while the Oles recorded 107.
Senior Anders Bowman finished his collegiate career crossing the finish line first for the Gusties in a time of 26:27.9 for 43rd place. First-year Dillon Emo was next in line for Gustavus with a 48th place finish in 26:34.6 and senior Mark Bartley concluded his Gustavus career in 26:42.0 for 57th place.
The remaining four finishers for the Black and Gold all broke the 28-minute mark. Junior Adam Lund took 89th in 27:20.1, senior Alex Thorton 109th in 27:39.9, junior Preston Tomlinson 115th in 27:44.9 and first-year Leighton Becher 119th in 27:49.1.
“The men went out there and ran unbelievably hard,” Head coach Dale Bahr said. “The past couple years the men seemed to have just gone through the motions at the regional meet, but this year, the men’s seniors in particular, showed up with an agenda. This group of seniors did a complete one-eighty from last year. Everybody was on board, everybody was on the same page and everybody knew what was expected of them.”
St. Thomas’ Ben Sathre won the 185-participant event in a time of 25:35.0, earning an automatic qualification for the national meet. Also earning a trip to the national meet were Jack Deichert (second – 25:18.0) and Ellis Richardson (third – 25:19.3) of Hamline, Kyle Heineman (fourth – 25:21.6) of Coe, Tom Sederquist (sixth – 25:28.5) of Concordia, Ben Jacobs (seventh – 25:29.1) of Cornell and Simpson’s Ryan Edwardson (eighth – 25:29.6).