FUS Men's and Women's Cross Country Teams place 11th and 5th

PITTSBURGH, PA-The Franciscan University of Steubenville's men's and women's cross country teams competed well at the Carnegie Mellon Invite this Saturday. The women's team placed fifth of 14 teams and the men's team placed 11th of 14 while both teams came away with multiple personal records.

On the women's team, junior Erin Bliss reset Franciscan's school record for the 5k distance at 19:00:84 while placing fourth of 164 female athletes. Bliss was close to accomplishing her goal of the season of break 19 minutes. Sophomore Monica Rust placed 15th overall coming in at 19:59.53. Also scoring points for the varsity team was freshman Anna Hogan coming in 34^th with 20:45.90, sophomore Anna Scharnecchia in 53^rd with 21:45.77 and freshman Jessica Schanilec in 55^th with 21:47.75.

A few women ran their personal bests this race, shaving significant amounts off their times. Sophomore Andrea Scott ran 25:15, freshman Kate Paulmann finished in 25:32 and junior Sara Kaladish nearly cut two minutes of her time at 25:42.

The men's team placed 11th of 14 teams and saw significant personal improvements. Freshman Bill Jones placed 35th out of 140 athletes running the 8k race in 27:27.01 and coming in second place for the men's team was freshman Kevin Leroy running 28:33.58.

Junior Kevin Codd ran 29:49.49 followed by freshman Marcus Fluty at 31:00.92. Freshmen Matthew Krepel, Jonah Carlstrom and Ben Wagner each ran their personal bests in times of 31:06, 31:54 and 32:04 respectively.

"Even though our times were relatively slow compared to last week, we did improve against our competition" recounted head coach Dr. Dan Kuebler. "We still have three weeks left in the season where we will be working on improving our times".

Both teams will be competing again on October 18 at the Intra-Regional Rumble in Oberlin, OH. Races will start at 10:30 a.m.