St. Peter, Minn. – The Gustavus Adolphus men’s and women’s cross country teams are set to compete at the 2014 NCAA Division III Central Region Championships being held on Saturday at Central College in Pella, Iowa. The men’s race will begin at 11 a.m. with the women’s race to follow at noon.
“This should be a great weekend,” said head coach Dale Bahr. “I thought both of our teams raced well at the conference meet. We had some individuals who could have raced better, but this is the perfect meet for them to bounce back and I think each of them is geared up to do that. Both teams are fired up and we’ve had some great practices leading up to the weekend that I think have put us in a great position to succeed.”
The women’s team heads into the regional meet after posting a sixth place finish with a score of 175 at the 2014 MIAC Championships held on November 1. The Gusties’ Caitlin Fermoyle (Sr., Mendota Heights, Minn.) took home her third straight All-Conference honor as she finished the 6k course in 22:30.8, good for seventh place.
Fermoyle and Lauren Shurson (Jr., Chanhassen, Minn.) are the team’s top returners from last season’s NCAA Central Region Championships that were held in Northfield. There, Fermoyle placed 50th with a 23:48.34, while Shurson was right behind her in 51st after running a 23:48.94. As a team, Gustavus finished with 260 points to finish in 11th place out of 27 teams. Wartburg College won the meet with a score of 86, Carleton College finished second with 104 and St. Olaf College rounded out the podium in third with a 131.
Rounding out the Gustavus women’s lineup on Saturday will be Mata Agre (Fy., Medina, Minn.), Courtney Branch (Jr., Minnetonka, Minn.), Emily Sands (So., Rochester, Minn.), Olivia Rosenow (Fy., Maple Grove, Minn.) and Stephanie Welke (So., Tomahawk, Wis.).
“Our team knows it’s a different race without Marit [Sonnesyn] and that to beat some of those teams we’re close with that we’re going to have to perform our best,” said Bahr. “We can’t just count on our top five, each runner is important all the way through because you never know when your seven runner could make that leap up to be your fourth or fifth runner on the day and that can make a huge difference.”
The men’s team will go into regional competition coming off another improved performance at this season’s MIAC Championships. After finishing 10th in 2012 and seventh in 2013, the Gusties improved to a sixth place standing with a score of 155 this season.
Just as he has done all season long, Thomas Knobbe (So., Decorah, Iowa) led the Gusties during the conference meet. Knobbe earned All-Conference honors for the first time by finishing the 8k race with the best time of his career, 25:35.6, good for 11th place. Knobbe’s performance marks a large individual improvement from 2013, when he finished in 40th place with a time of 27:15.6.
After placing 19th with a score of 510 at last year’s NCAA Central Region Championships, the men’s squad will again look to improve and should be in position to do so with its talented young nucleus of Paul Nordquist (Jr., Edina, Minn.), Carston Dammann (So., Lake City, Minn.), Evan Jones (So., Pella, Iowa) and Marcus Speca (Jr., Minnetonka, Minn.). Winning last year’s regional event was St. Olaf with a score of 51. Central placed second with 61 points and Luther took third with 127 points.
“Our goal this weekend is to catch and beat some of those teams out of the MIAC that we were not able to get at the conference meet,” said Bahr. “I’m not big on rankings, but we should be able to place right where we’re ranked, if not better. We definitely want to finish our season strong and catch a few of those conference teams that we know we can race with.”
With the forecast calling for highs in the low 30s and a 70 percent chance of snow on Saturday, Bahr knows his teams are in for a cold day, but does not believe that should play much of a role in the team’s mentality going into the race.
“Weather is what it is, it’s not something we can control,” said Bahr. “That’s something we work on with the team all season is focusing on those things that are within their control. Yes it will be cold, but we can’t control Mother Nature, she’s going to do what she’s going to do, so we’ll just run our race and do the best we can.”
Central College has set up a website to help fans follow the 2014 NCAA Division III Central Region Cross Country Championships. For course maps and descriptions, spectator information and a list of teams, please follow the link below. Fans can also track results online and that link is also below.