Bradley’s top runners ran against nationally ranked programs at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational on Sep. 28, which featured six Braves setting new personal bests. The women’s team placed 27th of 33 teams and the men finished 30th of 34.
Head coach Darren Gauson said he was glad the teams had the chance to compete with the best of the best.
“I was really happy with the women and they handled themselves really well,” Gauson said. “The place is not going to look spectacular when you’ve got 16 of the top 32 teams in the country in the race. [The women] beat San Francisco who finished second in the national meet last year. We were two positions away from Georgetown who were ranked 27 in the country.”
According to Gauson, the women’s squad is young and improving each day. Juniors Abby Jockisch and Gabby Juarez led the Braves while setting new six-kilometer career bests for themselves.
“Abby Jockisch had a great run and step-up performance,” Gauson said. “If we can put more people around her we are going to be good for top five finish at the regional meet. Our top five finishers were all underclassmen with two juniors and three freshmen. It looks good for the future as we want to ascend to contend for a national title.”
Redshirt senior Haran Dunderdale shaved close to 29 seconds off his eight-kilometer time to finish first for the Bradley men.
“Personally, it was good to run well at Nuttycombe,” Dunderdale said. “We have big goals for the team this year and I need to make a big step.”
Unfortunately for the Braves, senior Michael Ward pulled his calf while running in roughly 20th place and had to drop out of the race.
Gauson acknowledged that injuries can happen but was disappointed with the men’s performance.
“When you lose your number one guy it’s tough,” Gauson said, “We ended up scoring someone who was in 200th so we are adding 180 points, which really kills our overall team score. A few of the guys just didn’t have their best day. If we can get Michael Ward healthy and keep advancing Jake [Hoffert] and get Will [Anderson] to be solid we will fine.”
The men’s and women’s teams will host the Pink Classic today, the MVC Championship Oct. 27 and the NCAA Regional Nov. 9. All will take place at Newman Golf Course.
“We are in better shape than what Nuttycomb showed,” Dunderdale said. “It was a little reality check which will only make the team more focused [for the rest of the season]. Having home field advantage and knowing the stakes from these remaining races, has made the guys take it up another gear,” Dunderdale said.
Gauson is ready to host the three large meets and has high hopes. Gauson highlighted Missouri, Illinois, Butler, Iowa State, Iowa and Minnesota as teams he is excited to compete against.
“We are really fortunate to put on one of the better cross country meets in the country [in the Pink Classic],” Gauson said. “We have 1,200 individual athletes competing. There are going to be 44 Division I teams. If we can finish with two top-three finishes on the men’s and women’s side I would be pretty happy with that with the quality of the field.”
The women will run a 6K this afternoon at 3:15 p.m. and the men will run an 8K at 4 p.m. at Newman Golf Course.
