On Saturday, October 15 the IXC men and women competed at the Jim Drews/Tori Neubauer Invitational at the Maple Grove Golf Course hosted by University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. A whopping 437 people competed in the Men”s 8 km race spread over 25 full teams, and 387 people competed in the Women”s 6 km race spread over 23 full teams.
The IXC Men placed 7th overall as a team, and in the process had a solid scoring 5 on the day. The team was led in by Mike Frigo (Sr.) and Brendan McDonnell (So.), both of whom placed within the top 30. Aaron Silver (Sr.), Mike Spillone (Alum), and Ron Revord (Sr.) rounded out the top 5 on the day for the men. The team did well, although not as well as they had envisioned. The pack was not quite as tight as was meant to be, but a lot of that had to do with how slow everyone on the team got out. Some people did well off of the slow early pace, and some fell off. Altogether, though, it was a good day. Only 14 men were able to make the trip, so everyone looked good but didn”t have the usual backing up they were used to. The IXC Men looked ahead to Regionals where they would be able to compete side by side with the entire team as a whole.
The IXC Women placed 12th overall as a team with a score of 322, just behind St. Olaf College. Amanda Zamora (So.) led the IXC Women in, placing 58th with a time of 23:59.7. Kerry Devitt (Grad.), a new addition to the top ladies group, ran awesome, placing 64th overall with a time of 24:05.7. Jo Dibuz (So.), Grace Hucek (So.), and Megan Mocogni (Fr.) rounded out the top 5 on the day for the ladies. The IXC Women also were only able to bring a small part of their team with them, but they performed well despite their lack of usual support. Overall, the Ladies ran a good race, and a smart race, which allowed them to do as well as they did on the day.
