IXC starts season at EIU Walt Crawford Open

The Illinois Cross Country Club kicked off its 2015 season on a sweltering night last Friday at EIU’s Walt Crawford Open. By unofficial count, the men and women both took home fourth-place finishes in the first meet of the season. The women put on a strong performance, and every single male runner PR’d in the four-mile run, as the race was shortened due to the heat.

The women raced first on Friday. Fearless leader Megan Mocogni, the women’s captain, led the charge with a seventh-place overall finish. There was another familiar name atop the results for the ladies in Beth McGreal. Beth kicked off her #thereturn tour with IXC pretty much where she left off, running with Mocogni at the front of the pack. She ran 35 seconds faster since her last race at EIU in 2012. Emma Burkhardt was also in a familiar place in the results, finishing as the team’s No. 4 runner after solidifying herself as a consistent top-5 contributor last season.

After Erin McKee made a splash last year by finishing as the women’s No.1 runner at this meet, her high school teammate, freshman Jillian Monier turned some heads as the No. 3 finisher. Emma and Mocogni’s roommate, Lauren “LoCho” Choi really impressed on Friday, smashing her 5K PR by 33 seconds and rounding out the ladies’ scoring five. She’s coming off a fantastic second-place finish at NIRCA Nationals last fall and the momentum looks to have carried over. Allison Gibson, coming off a big summer, and Erin, were No. 6 and 7 for the team.

The men’s race was full of PR’s and new marks on the club leaderboard- because the club has never run a 4-mile cross country race before. Top dog Jared Ripoli covered the Panther Trail in 20:54, good for 10th place overall. Congratulations to Jared, the inaugural club record holder in the 4-mile run. LINK. The second-fastest 4-mile time in club history now belongs to David Oskar “Cliff” Choi. David showed some big flashes of potential last season, and it looks like he might be able to fully capitalize on them this year.

Brad “The Teacher” Coyle finished as the men’s No. 3 finisher in his first time on the cross country course since the 2008 NIRCA Cross Country Nationals. My calculations may be off, but I believe some of this year’s freshmen were not even born the last time Brad ran in a cross country race. Michael “One-Speed” Frintner and young Josh Feldman finished as the final men’s scorers. Jack Morrissey continued his success at EIU with another top-7 finish and Willy Wolf had a strong club debut in the No. 7 spot.

Ken Sprague put together the strongest race of his IXC career and Quinn “The Dancellor” Todzo had an impressive race after a big summer of training and bolstered nutrition thanks to the home-cooking of Edwin Zen.

EIU also gave several runners their first taste of collegiate cross country. On the men’s side, Hinsdale Central alumni Josh and Nick Tandle, Leonel “El León” Rodriguez, Monsieur Tristan “Most Fun Name to Say”Sarton Du Jonchay, and Jordan “The Flying J” Vear all made their IXC debuts in the heat on Friday. For the ladies, Jillian, Becky Haight, Kaitlin Sumler, and IXC Scavenger Hunt Champion Noel Brindise kicked-off their IXC careers. Congratulations to all the newcomers for competing in their first race with the club.

The team returns to action on September 25 at Augustana’s Brissman-Lundeen Invitational. It’s a big meet with a lot of quality competition, and IXC will spend the next three weeks grinding it out and getting ready to toe the line again.