Lehigh University Athletics
Cross country wins Lehigh Invitational
9/3/2011 3:54:00 AM | Men's Cross Country
BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The Lehigh men's and women's cross country teams both took home first place at the 6K Lehigh Invitational on Friday. The men defended its first-place finish from last year, this time with a perfect score of 15 as the Mountain Hawks took the top five places while the women placed seven runners inside the top 13 for a winning score of 36.
"I'm very pleased," said Lehigh men's cross country head coach Todd Etters. "Our goal was to get five runners in the top 10 and we got one better than that so I was very happy."
"I'm pretty excited about what I saw today," said Lehigh women's cross country head coach Debbie Utesch. "The upperclassmen did a tremendous job and the freshmen showed they are ready to be in the mix so I think that's some great stuff to build on."
The men were led by sophomore Jimmy Miller who took first place with a time of 18:45.80. Following Miller was senior Evan Flach with a time of 18:46.50. Senior Evans Kosgei took third (18:46.70), sophomore Sam Bernitt placed fourth (18:52.50) and sophomore Tyler Mueller was fifth (18:52.80). Freshman Ryan Mahalsky finished ninth (19:04.20.)"It was great to see Jimmy at that level of our two senior-co captains," said Etters. "Our two sophomores executed their race strategy perfectly and were able to sneak in there and get fourth and fifth for us. It's always cool when you can have five guys control a race like that."
Lehigh had another four runners place in the top 20 as senior Dan Solton finished 15th, freshmen Casey Gilboy and Simon Voorhees finished 16th and 18th respectively while sophomore Ryan Knouse rounded out the group in 20th.
LaSalle finished second with a total score of 84 while Patriot League-foe Lafayette placed third with a score of 106. DeSales (126) was fourth, Kutztown (127) was fifth while Muhlenberg (134) and Moravian (134) tied in sixth place and West Chester University was eighth (211).
On the women's side, Lehigh was led by freshman Savanna Plombon who finished in second place with a time of 22:05.50. Following her was freshmen Shannon Nelson in sixth (22:57.40), Hannah Pierce in eighth (23:01.60), senior Carolyn Morse in ninth, and sophomore Katherine Howley, junior Tori Berard and sophomore Jessica Kendzor finished in 11th through 13th respectively.
"We were very specific putting people in one of two packs," said Utesch. "It was great to see the packs together right where they needed to be. It gave us some good glimpses with how we are going to match up for the rest of the season."
Lehigh was without frontrunner senior Katherine Pierce and Utesch was really happy with what she saw from the freshmen class.
"We knew we had some good freshmen in the mix but it was just a matter of how they make the transition to the 6K," she said. "It was really good to see."
Patriot League-foe Lafayette finished in second with 67 points. Kutztown was third (97), West Chester fourth (112), Muhlenberg fifth (157), LaSalle sixth (178), DeSales seventh (195) and Moravian ninth (204).
Junior Kristina Koutsouros from West Chester won the race with a time of 21:44.60
Both teams will race again in two weeks when it travels to compete in the Iona Meet of Champions on September 17 at 9:30 a.m. for the women and 10:15 a.m. for the men at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, N.Y.
"The next couple of weeks, we are just going to focus on staying healthy which we are right now," said Etters. "We are going to keep the mileage up and the quality and if we can do that, we'll be in good shape when we get to Iona."
"It will be a high-powered race," said Utesch. "It will give us a chance to see where we stack up against other teams in the region."
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