The Cross Country season got underway over the weekend with a pair of events hosted by the University of St. Mary and Baker University.

On Friday night, the Raven Men competed in the Sunset Showdown hosted by USM and took home second place. They turned around and traveled to Baldwin City on Saturday to compete in the annual ZK Maple Leaf Invite.

The men ran a very fast average pace of 26:23 in the season opener.  David Mannella placed 6th while freshmen Joseph Accruso placed 9th to round out our top 10 finishes.  Brothers Gabriel Friess and Thaddeus Friess both ran massive personal best with times of 26:15 and 26:17, respectively.  

Reese Danitschek (17:17, 19th) and Micah Munoz (17:23, 20th) each placed in the top 20 of the men's 5K race.  There were also personal best times recorded by sophomore Aaron Guzman (18:32)

"Overall I am very proud of how our teams competed and took on the challenge early in the season to put down some good times and have fun doing so," said Director of Cross Country and Track & Field Je'Kel Smith.  "It was exciting to see our freshmen get after it for the first time since the start of preseason training and showing us what they're capable of doing."