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Cross country off to a hot start, literally

Not even temperatures eclipsing 90 degrees at Detweiller Park last Friday afternoon during the Bradley Intercollege could slow down the defending Missouri Valley Conference champions.

The Braves swept both team competitions, with junior McKenzie Altmayer attacking the leaders late and senior Jake Hoffert soloing away from the gun to claim individual titles.

“A lot of positives to take out of it, McKenzie and Jake obviously … we had a lot of good young guys coming through like [redshirt-freshmen] Drew Wenger and Matt Ritchman,” head coach Darren Gauson said. “I was pretty happy with the day as a whole.”

In the women’s three mile race, two runners from Southeast Missouri State took to the front of the race, with Bradley’s sophomore Tyler Schwartz in tow. Almost immediately, sophomore Ayah Aldadah sat in third place, around five seconds back, with a clump of Bradley and SEMO runners a few strides behind her.

The race played out that way until the final half mile, when Altmayer, who sat in the bunch, found another gear nobody could follow. She finished the race in 17 minutes 21.1 seconds.

“We had planned to go to the front as a group, and in that last mile our coach Danny [Stults] gave us the okay to push the pace and race, and I just had it,” Altmayer said. “My mileage is higher than it’s ever been and I’m feeling really good.”

The Braves had five of the first eight finishers – Altmayer, Schwartz and Aldadah and freshmen Sophia McDonell and Lily Strauss. Gauson caught notice of the strong performance by the underclassmen.

“In the women’s race, we went junior, sophomore, sophomore, freshman, freshman.” Gauson said. “I was really happy with the youth today.”

In the men’s 8-kilometer, Jake Hoffert went to the front immediately and never looked back. Hoffert has the fastest personal best on the team, running 24:33.6 at the 2018 MVC Cross Country Championships, and he cruised to the victory in 25:06.1 this time around.

Given the scorching heat, the fact that it is early in the season and that Hoffert ran the race nearly entirely on his own, his performance earned him Valley Cross Country Athlete of the Week recognition.

“He’s in really good shape.” Gauson said. “That was as smooth as I’ve ever seen him look in a race … He’s a two-time national qualifier and in fantastic shape.”

As a team, Bradley had nine of the top 11 finishers, and three in the top five: Hoffert, Richtman and senior Ben Potrykus.

The team now looks ahead to meets at Notre Dame and Wisconsin, where they will race stronger programs.

“Notre Dame will be our first real test.” Gauson said. “Obviously then at Wisconsin and here at the Pink Classic will be our big tests for the conference meet. And after those meets we can start to see how we need to prepare for conference like, ‘do we need more speed work’ or ‘do we need to do better long runs.’”

The Braves will race next on Oct 4 at the Joe Piane Invitational at Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.

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