Hokie ClubBehind Peter Seufer’s 15th-place finish, the Virginia Tech men’s cross country team came in third at the Louisville Sports Commission Cross Country Classic held at E.P. “Tom” Sawyer State Park on Saturday morning.
Seufer ran the 8K course in a time of 23 minutes, 48.37 seconds to lead a Tech men’s squad that had four runners finish in the top 30, as the Hokies finished with 112 points. Patrick Joseph came in 19th overall with a time of 23:55.71, while Daniel Jaskowak was 23rd overall with a time of 24:05.87. Neil Gourley and Diego Zarate finished 31st and 33rd, respectively, while Vincent Ciattei came in 35th and Jack Joyce was 38th.
“Today was our first meet with all of our guys running,” Tech distance coach Ben Thomas said. “Patrick, Neil and Diego ran very solid season openers. We had a nice pack of five guys all together at the 4K mark, and a 28-second, first-through-fifth spread at the finish. It’s not bad for where we are in our training.
“The guys are doing the work to give themselves a chance. We’ll need to be better at the ACC meet, but I think we can be.”
Northern Arizona’s Matthew Baxter won the race with a time of 23:10.52. Northern Arizona captured the top four spots and six of the top 11 to finish in first place in the team race. Furman came in second, followed by the Hokies, Boise State and Illinois.
On the women’s side, Kayla Richardson paced the Hokies, coming in 36th overall with a time of 17:19.13. As a team, Tech finished in 10th place with 296 points, though the Hokies competed without senior Katie Kennedy, who missed the race because of sickness.
Two other Tech runners finished in the top 50. Laurie Barton came in 44th overall with a time of 17:26.13, while Sarah Edwards was 54th overall with a time of 17:31.28.
“Kayla, Sarah and Laurie had very good efforts,” Thomas aid. “We’ll be much better with Katie, and Sara [Freix], Rachel [Pocratsky] and Ellie [Brush] have really good potential. [Lauren] Berman and [Amanda] Swaak will help, as I believe they’ll get much better over the next month with continued consistency.”
Freix finished 79th out of 290 runners, while Pocratsky was 93rd and Brush was 117th.
Boise State’s Megan Lacy won the women’s race with a time of 16:28.15. The Broncos won the team competition with 78 points, followed by Wisconsin, Furman and Minnesota.
Both Tech squads now take a week off before returning to Louisville for the second of three straight meets. The Hokies will compete in the NCAA Pre-Nationals held on the same course on Oct. 14.