Angie Berry Sept. 6, 2008

Men, women run strong for third place

PELLA— Competing in their own backyard, the Central College men’s and women’s cross country teams each took home third place at the season-opening Central Dutch Invitational Saturday. Three runners placed in the top 10 for the Dutch women. Angie Berry (junior, Norwalk) was third on the 5,000-meter course (18:52), Jess Clark (senior, Melbourne, Iowa, West Marshall HS) was fifth (19:11) and Amy Ledvina (junior, Toledo, Iowa, South Tama HS) was 10th (19:45).  Melanie Louis (freshman, Davenport, Iowa, Central HS) was 38th (20:54), and led a pack of runners to the finish including Meghann Burt (sophomore, Slater, Iowa, Ankeny Christian HS) in 39th (20:56), Maggie Wehde (freshman, Tipton) in 40th (21:00) and Jenni Hufford (junior, Polk City, Iowa, Ankeny HS) in 41st (21:03).

Grand View’s Obsie Birru set a new meet record en route to winning the women’s individual title by 26 seconds (18:10). The previous meet record was 18:42 set in 2005.

Iowa Conference rival Luther took the team crown with 46, with Iowa Central at 75 and Central at 79 in the eight-team field.

Taylor leads Dutch men--In the men’s 6,000-meter race, Pierre Taylor (junior, Oswego, Ill.) crossed the line first for the Dutch in sixth place in 19:41. Jaron Byrum (senior, New London) was 22nd (20:42), Andrew Hamer (freshman, Murray) was 25th (20:50), Derek Townsend (senior, Perry) was 27th (20:56),  Tyler Husak (senior, Tama, South HS) was 36th (21:10), Austin Vondracek (sophomore, Swisher, Cedar Rapids Prairie HS) was 42nd (21:14) and Corey Fitzsimmons (junior, Pella) was 59th (21:45).

Stephen Dak of Iowa Central won the meet for the second straight year in 18:49, three seconds off his own meet record.

Iowa Central led a nine-team field with 36 points. Simpson (54 points) was its closest competitor in second place. Central put up a score of 114, Southwest  (138), Luther (155), St. Ambrose (174), Grand View (201), William Penn (234) and Buena Vista (267) rounded out the field of nine.

Central cross country Stephen Fyfe said that he was pleased with the performances of both the men’s and women’s squads in their first meet of the season.

“It was good to finally compete against other teams,” said Fyfe. “It was a good-sized field. Our focus was to pack up and run together in the race, and I think we did a good job of that.”

Fyfe felt the team effort was what really stuck out.

“I like what we did was a team,” Fyfe said.  “I’m not sure if I can really focus on anything we did as individuals.”

Both teams will head to Grinnell on Sept. 13 for the Les Duke Invitational where last year the men placed sixth in a field of 13 teams, and the Central women placed fifth out of 10.