Friday, September 2, 2011
DES MOINES, Iowa --The
Drake men's cross country team opened up its season in strong fashion at the Bulldog
Classic in Des Moines on Friday (Sept. 2).
Drake had six runners in the top ten of the double-dual meet between
in-state rivals Iowa State and UNI. The Bulldogs won both duals beating UNI
20-35 and Iowa State 15-40 on the 4,000-meter course.
"It was a good way to get the season underway," commented head coach Dan Hostager. "It's very early in the
season and we've got a long way to go but it's apparent that the group had a
good summer of training. It's nice to open up at home, as has been our
tradition for over a decade, and most of the guys were able to cut a lot of
time off from last year despite the warm conditions."
Sophomore Omet Kak (Des
Moines, Iowa) led the Bulldogs with a second place finish crossing the line in
12:48.13, edging out junior Charlie Lapham (Golden Valley, Minn.), who finished third with a time of 12:48.50.
Freshman Conor Wells (Des
Moines, Iowa), in his first collegiate race, garnered a fourth-place showing
clocking in at 12:49.99, while sophomore Brogan Austin (Boone, Iowa) finished in 12:51.74 to snare fifth.
Also scoring for the Bulldogs were sophomore Doug Brady (Englewood, Colo.) who finished in sixth-place
(12:53.42) and senior Colin Hagan
(Wichita, Kan.) who was seventh (12:54.81). The senior duo of Ben Jaskowiak (Madison, Wis.) and Matt Jurysta (Oshawa, Ontario) finished
in 11th (13:01.71) and 16th (13:10.38) places, respectively.
The Bulldogs travel to the Twin Cities next week to defend their
Oz Memorial title on Sept. 9. The race is named after former Drake head coach
Gary Osborn.
"We're excited for next weekend's Oz Memorial meet after our
performance today," Hostager said.
