Last weekend, the IXC Men and Women headed out to Iowa for the NIRCA Great Plains Regional hosted by the Mizzou Running Club. Both races went off fairly early, with the Men”s race at 9 am and the Women”s race at 10 am. Although only a finishing team was required to make it to the National meet on November 12th, both the Men and Women were looking to win the Regional meet before heading off to North Carolina.
Sadly, the Men fell short by a mere 4 points to the Iowa State Running Club. Mike Frigo (Sr.) took the individual Regional title, but it wasn”t quite enough for the IXC men to pull off the win. Brendan McDonnell (So.), Aaron Silver (Sr.), Ron Revord (Sr.), and Brett Lustgarten (Sr.) all had good races, but it just was not enough for the IXC men to take the title away from a strong Iowa State pack. There were a lot of great races by some of the other runners on the squad, though. Henry Wolf (So.) gets the big shout out of the week, though, with his stunning drop in time from his other races this past season. Henry finished 38th overall with a time of 28:19 over the 8 km course, running well out of his shoes to get there. The men look to pull a ‘”Henry Wolf'” in North Carolina when they hope to take down a tough Iowa State Club at Nationals. All or nothing; that is the nature of the championship season. And the IXC Men are hungry to get on the starting line.
The IXC Women ran an incredible race in Missouri, placing 1st overall as a team. The lead women”s pack held together almost all of the way through the finish line, destroying the rest of the competition in the process. Amanda Zamora (So.), Grace Hucek (So.), Kerry Devitt (Grad.), and Jo Dibuz (So.) went 3, 4, 5, 7, respectively, as a pack. Jessie Balagtas (So.) rounded out the top 5 with an 11th place finish, securing the win by over 40 points. A regional title was an awesome way to start off the Championship Season, but the ladies look to continue dominating over a much tougher field at Nationals.
Keep looking up, Men and Women. The real race is fast approaching.
