Article after today's racing-
Direct link -
https://cubuffs.com/news/2022/9/24/cross-country-new-faces-step-up-for-buffaloes.aspx
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STILLWATER, Okla. — The University of Colorado cross country program competed in its first major meet of the season here Saturday morning with the women finishing fourth with 155 points in the 6K and the men seventh with 183 point in the 8K at the Cowboy Jamboree.
The women, who are tied for third in the nation, were led by a pair of transfers and
Emily Covert with top-20 finishes.
Bailey Hertenstein led the way for Colorado placing 11th overall in 20:38.7, followed by Covert placing 16th in 20:45.8 and
Ella Baran one place behind in 20:46.4.
On the men's side, the fifth-ranked Buffaloes finished seventh led by
Andrew Kent with an eighth-place finish in 23:30.8. CU's biggest surprise was redshirt freshman
James Overberg finishing third for the team and 40th overall in 24:01.8. True freshman
Isaiah Givens was also a large surprise, finishing 47th overall unattached in 24:08.5.
The women's top-three was huge for Colorado. Following them were
Kaitlyn Barthell in 58th (21:24.6), Gabrielle Orie in 60th (21:26.7) and
Whitney Valenti in 83rd (21:42.2) to round out the scoring five.
"All three of those (top runners) are important runners for us," said head coach
Mark Wetmore. "Each of them had a good race in slightly different ways. All three of them have a lot of improvement coming I'm confident. Behind them, we weren't very good. We need to get
Hannah Miniutti around the course successfully, which didn't happen today. We have some people that did not have excellent summers and we're running out of time so they have some work to do in a hurry. We knew we weren't deep all along. If somebody asked me in August, I would have said, the women can be good but they're not deep. So after fifth or sixth, there's a big gap that won't get filled. We need everybody to be healthy and fit in six weeks."
The men were without one of their top runners in
Austin Vancil, but with Kent paving the way and newcomers showing up big, the Buffs have a bright future to the young season.
Charlie Sweeney was second for Colorado, finishing 37th in 23:59.0, followed by Overberg in 40th and Fraser in 42nd (24:05.2).
Lukas Haug capped off the scoring five placing 57th in 24:12.3.
"The men were chaos," said Wetmore. "Andy was great. We have two or three people that should have been with him that weren't. We decided to hold out Austin who generally is our top runner in practice, but he has a little lower leg problem that we're trying to solve. Veteran guys like
Charlie Sweeney and Brendan need to be higher than that. And then there were some real bright spots among young people. A whole bunch of redshirt freshmen did well. Isaiah, he did so well I never even saw him finish. He went by before I was expecting him. We may have to put a uniform on him in three weeks. Anyway, the young guys were good, and the old guys have some work to do. They could be better completely rested. They may need a better rest than they had in the last week, we worked hard on Sunday, we worked hard on Wednesday. We knew we were doing that."
The men had a number of athletes place in the top-100 overall with Wisconsin transfer
Seth Hirsch just off the scoring at 63rd (24:14.6), followed by
Noah Hibbard (69th | 24:18.2),
Grady Rauba (77th | 24:23.1),
Jace Aschbrenner (78th | 24:23.9),
Hunter Appleton (96th | 24:38.2) and
Charlie Welch (99th | 24:39.9).
Of the men finishing in the top-100, six were underclassmen including Givens.
"It was not a shock to see James up there," said Wetmore. "A pleasant surprise but not a shock. Isaiah surprised me once I saw the results.
Grady Rauba was good. Lukas was good. Not far behind them, Alex was good. As I said those redshirt freshmen had a promising day."
Host school and co-No.3-ranked Oklahoma State took the women's team title with 69 points while No.4- ranked BYU took the men's title with 75 points.
"My takeaway from today is we know where we are," said Wetmore. "This first meet against real competition is when you find out who's been naughty and who's been nice. So now we know and we know what we need to solve and it's our task to get it solved in six or eight weeks."
Colorado returns to Boulder with 20 days of work ahead of them before splitting the team between the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational, home to the 2024 NCAA Championships, and the Highlander Invitational in Los Angeles that will preview the 2022 Pac-12 Championship course.
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Full results:
Women's -
https://cubuffs.com/documents/2022/9/24/Cowboy_Jamboree_Womens6k.pdf
Men's -
https://cubuffs.com/documents/2022/9/24/Cowboy_Jamboree_Mens8k.pdf