WAVERLY, Iowa – The Gustavus men’s and women’s cross country traveled to Waverly, Iowa on Saturday to participate in the Wartburg Invite. The women finished in second place of 19 teams while the men finished in sixth.
On the women’s side of the event, the “pack mentality” worked wonders for the Gusties as they had six runners finish from 11th to 27th. Lotus Schifsky (Sr., Prescott, Wis.), Tierney Winter (Jr., Waterville, Minn.), and Gabriela Passmore (Jr., Mapleton, Minn.) all finished inside the top 18 for the Gusties, while Abbie Schnabel (Sr., Hamburg, Minn.), Kourtney Kulseth (So., New Richland, Minn.), and Iliana Ramon (Fy., Fairmont, Minn.) all finished in the top 27.
On the women’s results, head coach Brenden Huber said, “Today was the culmination of all the work we’ve put in the last six weeks we’ve been training. We’ve been telling our runners since the start of the season that everything we have been doing has a plan and although the results haven’t been perfect for us this season, today’s efforts really showed how on track we actually are. Our pack running led to our success against some very solid regional competition.
The men saw success as well with three runners finishing in the top 36. Andrew Stumbo (So., Boone, Iowa) ran exceptionally well for the Gusties finishing in fourth place overall with a time of 25:40.5. Alex Wischnack (Sr., Norwood, Minn.) and Jack DeGonda (Fy., Marine on St. Croix, Minn.) also ran solid races finishing in 22nd and 36th place respectively.
About the men coach Huber said, “I was really pleased with the guys efforts today. We had a lot of regionally ranked opponents in the race and we saw that we can compete with best of the best. It’s always positive when we have a lot of personal bests coming from a mid-season race. I think that our training is really setting us up to see a successful second half of the season.”
The Gusties will next be in action Saturday, Oct. 13, when they participate in the UW-La Crosse Invitational.