Quakers Throw Down at Friendship Invitational!

Last Saturday we had a short trip over to Cedarville University.  I was excited that we could put this meet back on our schedule because they have a great course.  Dickinson moved their meet back a week this year which allowed us to put Cedarville back on the schedule.  Cedarville is a fair test-you know when you leave there if you have run a good time-it is legitimate.  The men showed huge improvement from the Franklin Invitational 2 weeks ago.  Obviously some of the improvement was due to the fact that it was 95 degrees at Franklin 2 weeks ago and Cedarville had near perfect conditions-either way I was real happy with the improvement we made.  The men ran to a fourth place finish.  Our goal going in was a top 3-so we fell a little short. We have a lot of young guys on the team that had never raced five miles until 2 weeks ago-so their second go-around with the distance went much better.  Myles Corcoran and Pat Carroll led us with top ten finishes both running in the mid 26's.  The race of the day came from Sophomore Sam Nieves who had never broken 30 minutes-he ran a huge PR of  28:43-he was an easy selection for Male Athlete of the meet for our team this week.  The women followed at 11am and ran a strong race.  I was definitely excited standing at the mile to see 3 Lady Quakers go through in the lead pack!  The women's field was loaded: Cedarville is an Naia/D2 powerhouse every year, Indian Wesleyan was ranked 10th in the most recent NAIA National Ranking, Otterbein was OAC Runner-up last year, Cumberland College is getting votes in the NAIA poll, Cleveland State is D1, and Wright State is a D1 school.  We had set our goal for a top 3 finish and actually came in 2nd.  Freshman Jenna Parlette was 2nd and ran her first race ever in the 18's and Annie Cekada was right behind in 3rd to lead the Lady Quakers.  There was some nervous anticipation after the race because we weren't sure where we finished, but we knew that we had run well.  Some of the parents thought we may have pulled off the win, but we ultimately ended up 2nd and we were all pleased with that.  The great thing about this group is they were happy with the results but not satisfied.  Our best runs are ahead of us.  We did have 1 dissapointment for the weekend!  After the race we headed to Youngs Jersey Dairy to increase our fatty food and ice cream intake but their was a festival for Wool going on at Youngs so we headed into Xenia to grab lunch.  In 2 weeks we are back at Cedarville and we will give Youngs another try then!