WPU Previews Conference Meet Course

Cedar Rapids--The Statesmen men's cross country team returned to action Saturday by competing at the Mount Mercy Seminole Valley Stampede.

William Penn finished 11th out of 23 squads with 347 points.  Aquinas (Mich.) won the team crown with 64 points, while Cornerstone (Mich.) took the runner-up spot with 73 points.

The course will be the host site of next month's Heart of America Athletic Conference Championship.

Juan David Hernandez of Aquinas guided the 262-person field on the 8K course with a time of 24:35.9.

Andrew Miller (Jr., Le Claire, Iowa, Exercise Science) headlined WPU's efforts, placing 59th with a time of 26:27.5, while Gavin Huff (Jr., Mascoutah, Ill., Mechanical Engineering) was next in 66th at 26:34.2.

Brady McWhirter (Fr., Fairfield, Iowa, Sports Management) finished 76th in 26:51.0, and Carson Springer (Jr., Grimes, Iowa, Business Management) was 99th in 27:20.0.  Sutton Shively (So., Bloomfield, Iowa, Mechanical Engineering) wrapped up the varsity lineup in a time of 27:28.9 to finish in 106th place.

Jordan Davis (Sr., Loomis, Calif., Political Science) paced the remaining Statesmen with a 112th-place finish in 27:33.7.

"The men had a great opportunity today to mix it up with many teams that are either ranked or receiving votes and find out where we truly are at," Head Coach Caleb Drake said.  "We honestly probably fell a little bit short of what was hoped for, but the beauty of it is that we have time on our side.  However, we still had eight out of 12 guys run lifetime bests for an 8K.  This shows that the work they are putting in is paying off.  We simply have to put it together on the same day."

"We came into today essentially feeling like this was the true beginning of our competitive season," Drake said.  "Not that the competitions before this did not matter, but they were more on the side of working and shaping different things for the second half of our season."

Next Up: William Penn takes a couple weeks off before traveling to Ashland, Neb. on Saturday, October 25 to compete in the Blazing Tiger NAIA Classic.