Pierre Taylor Oct. 18, 2008

A dozen men run personal bests

WEST SALEM, WIS.—Six runners recorded career-best times as the Central College men’s and women’s cross country teams raced in powerful fields at the Jim Drews/Tori Neubauer Invitational Saturday. The Dutch women were 13th in a 25-team meet hosted by Wis.-La Crosse while the men were 21st.

Division I South Dakota State topped the women’s field with 81 points, followed by Minnesota with 82 and Wartburg with 146. Iowa Conference rival Luther was 12th at 339 with Central at 394 and Simpson in 18th at 472.

Jess Clark (senior, Riverdale, Ill., Port Byron HS) was 33rd for the Central women in 22:50.8, well under her previous career 6,000-meter best of 23:17, which she turned in Oct. 11 at Waverly. But coach Stephen Fyfe was most impressed with the showing of Amber Mayer (junior, Essex),who was 60th  in 23:16.3, easily eclipsing her previous best of 24:00 which she ran in 2006 at the Les Duke Invitational near Grinnell.

“Amber ran that as a freshman and she’s had a few injuries since then, but today was just a breakthrough for her,” Fyfe said. “She was a lot closer to Jess than she’s been before. I think she’s starting to realize what she can do.”

Angie Berry (junior, Norwalk), still battling the effects of an early season illness, was 65th in 23:22.2, just off her season best, while Amy Ledvina (junior, Tama, South Tama HS) was 102nd in a season-best 24:10.0. Connie Eshelman (senior, Bridgewater, Nodaway Valley HS) was 134th in a season-best 24:52.6, Jenni Hufford (junior, Ankeny) was 139th in a season-best 25:01.3 and freshman Melanie Louis (Davenport, Central HS) turned in a personal-best 25:13.7, finishing 145th. There were 444 runners in the field.

Taylor leads men again—Once again Pierre Taylor (junior, Oswego, Ill.) topped the Central men’s finishers, placing 99th in the 8,000-meter race in 27:11.8. Brandon Williams (senior, Coralville, Iowa Mennonite HS) was 133nd in a personal-best 27:35.0, Jaron Byrum (senior, New London) was 128th in a season-best 27:42.3, Derek Townsend (senior, Perry) was 131st in 27:46.3, Tyler Husak (senior, Tama, South Tama HS) was 143rd in a personal-best 28:00.9, James Armstead (senior, Greenfield, Nodaway Valley HS) was 148th in a season-best 28:12.1 and Cory Fitzsimmons (junior, Pella) was 150th in a career-best 28:13.5.

Host Wis.-La Cross was first with 86 points with Wisconsin next at 163. Central finished with 623.

“The men started to break into some of the teams ahead of us,” Fyfe said. “In a field this big, it’s hard to not have that strong No. 1 runner who can finish in the top 20. We sort of start 70 points in the hole right away. But I was really happy with the way we ran. I’m hoping that when we run in two weeks with just the conference schools, we’ll move closer.”

Fyfe noted that Central entered several junior varsity runners Saturday as well and combined with the men’s and women’s varsity squads to record 21 personal bests, including bests from 12 of the 16 men’s runners.

The Dutch will take the next two weeks preparing for the Nov. 1 Iowa Conference meet at Storm Lake. Central’s women’s squad was third in the league last season for the third time in four years while the men were sixth after placing third the previous two seasons. The season’s other key race, the NCAA Division III Central Regional near Grinnell, follows Nov. 15.

“We’ve got one more really good week where we’ll have a couple of good workouts and try to hit it pretty hard,” Fyfe said. “Then we’ll start to taper off the next week and get ready for our two big meets.”