Cross country competes at Spartan Invitational
Senior Riak Mabil took ninth place (25 minutes, 9 seconds) in his first run of the season Friday to lead the men’s cross country team at the Spartan Invitational.
“Riak’s just Riak — you love watching him race,” assistant coach Matt Kaczor said. “He just really stuck his nose in there, and that’s what we’re looking for.”
Mabil ran almost a minute faster than he did last year in East Lansing, when he finished with a time of 26:01. The men ran an 8K race.
Beyond that, the Chippewas had one other runner in a top 30 dominated by Michigan State University (10 runners), Grand Valley State University (eight), and Eastern Michigan University (six).
“We have to learn how to close that gap over the next couple of meets,” said director and head coach Wille Randolph.
Other notable finishes in the 8K for CMU include junior Jeremy Kiley (25:58) finishing in 30th place and senior Chris Pankow (26:26) taking 44th place. Both had better times compared to last year’s race.
Sophomore Matt Lutzke opened the season in 65th place, but ran ill, Kaczor said.
Eastern Michigan senior Josh Karanja finished first at 24 minutes, 31 seconds.
Dakroub leads women
The women’s cross country team finished with two Top 25 finishes Friday at the Spartan Invitational.
“Lots of positive things happened today on the women’s side,” Randolph said.
Leading the team were juniors Danielle Dakroub (22:21) and Melissa Darling (22:33), finishing in 16th and 23rd place, respectively.
“We had some pretty good performances with Danielle and Missy (Darling),” Kaczor said. “They kind of mixed it up with the Miami girls. It was nice to see those two step it up.”
Sophomore Holly Anderson placed 32nd with a time of 22:54. Miami, the other Mid-American Conference team present at the invitational, placed four runners in the top 20, including a 10th-place finish from first-team All Mid-American Conference Amanda Mirochna.
Next up for the men and women is the University of Louisville-sponsored Greater Louisville Classic on Oct. 3.
