Oct. 18, 2008
TERRE HAUTE, IN – This weekend’s Pre-Nationals meet, hosted by Indiana State University, earned the women’s team a ninth place finish (283 points) and the men’s team an eighteenth place finish (512 points). Forty-one women’s teams competed in a 6,000 meter race and 41 men’s teams competed in an 8,000 meter race. The winning women’s team was Washington (36 points) and the winning men’s team was Alabama (89 points).
For the women, senior Racheal Marchand (11th, 20:27.9) again set the pace for the rest of the Hawkeyes and earned a new personal best time for the 6,000 meters, beating her previous best set at Pre-Nationals two years ago. A total of four Hawkeyes finished in the top 100, including freshman Brooke Eilers (34th, 21:06.7), graduate student Sarah Spencer Perry (39th, 21:12.5) and freshman Betsy Flood (82nd, 21:37.3). Head Coach Layne Anderson thought this meet further validated his feelings about Marchand’s potential to have a real stellar senior year. However, he thinks they need to work on getting the overall team score up if they want to be competitive in the Big Ten Championships. The top individual finisher was North Carolina’s Brianna Felnagle with a time of 20:02.4.
Junior Jesse Luciano (55th, 24:31.0) was the Hawkeyes’ top finisher, with co-captains Eric MacTaggart (79th, 24:45.7) and Andy Napier (89th, 24:50.4) rounding out the three Iowa runners in the top 100. Head Coach Larry Wieczorek admits that this meet was not the team’s best day. He says that now they need to go back to the drawing board and prepare for the Big Ten Championships. The top individual finisher was Tyson David from Alabama with a time of 23:30.1.
The teams have about two weeks to prepare for their next action, the Big Ten Championships, on Nov 11 in Ann Arbor, MI.