LOUISVILLE, Ky / WALLA WALLA, Wash. — The Eastern Washington Eagles cross country teams ran in two meets meets split across the country on Saturday morning, with 10 runners competing at the Live in Lou Classic in Louisville, Ky. while others ran at the Whitman College Invitational in Walla Walla, Wash. The Eagle women finished 14th and men 24th at the Live in Lou Classic, against elite programs from all corners of the U.S.
"It was great to travel and beat some regional ranked teams outside of our region," said EWU Cross Country head coach Sam Read.
In Louisville, Noah Hasselblad led the charge for the EWU men, placing 49th overall with a time of 24:31.4 in the 8K race. The team finished 24th out of 39 men's teams with 642 points.
"We definitely came into this race hoping for more, but things didn't quite go our way today," said Read. "We did a great job of not letting the bad snowball to what could've easily been much worse. We battled back and scrapped a result to be about where we were predicted going in."
"Jesus (Herrejon) and Evan (Peters) continued to show some great consistency today in our mid pack which will be something we will rely on come championship season." Read added.
For the women's side, sophomore Nattie Ruzauskas, placing 78th, and juniors Jenni Bissell and Lilly Fetzer trailing close behind (95th and 96th), helped EWU take a team result of 14th out of 37 teams with 451 points.
"The women continue to crank out really solid team performances, mixing up in each scoring position. The majority of teams that had 1-2 scores better than our 1-2 but with a spread of only 18 seconds, our pack strength pulled us over many of those teams," coach Sam noted.
The Eagle women won the other meet of the day at Whitman College.
"Our athletes racing down at Whitman raced great," Read added. "Our men were led by a lifetime best performance from Austin Steed. The women put our top 5 in the top 15 of the race and won the meet in a close team battle. It's exciting watching the results and seeing us represented all over the country, running strong no matter where we are"
Maddie Drennen led the Eagle women in Walla Walla with a time of 22:58.1 (6:09.6 average mile) to finish 3rd in the 6K. Steed ran the men's 8K in 25:27.5 to place 19th.
Eastern Washington's cross country team is next in action on Oct. 14 in Lewiston, Idaho for the LC State Invitational. The 2023 Big Sky Championship is on Oct. 27 in Missoula, Mont.
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ABOUT EASTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS
Eastern Washington University Athletics sponsors 14 intercollegiate sports, six for men and eight for women, both as learning opportunities for its most athletically talented students and as an enhancement to student and community life. Eastern is affiliated with Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and is a member of the Big Sky Conference, an association of 10 regional schools with comparable enrollments and academic goals.
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