Redpack Looks Ahead to NCAA DIII Great Lakes Regional
The course was at the Clark County fairgrounds in Springfield, Ohio. The course is a relatively new course, but it was still well marked and designed well. However, the course took a beating in the days leading up the meet because of rainy weather. There were several spots on the course with standing water and slippery mud that slowed down the field from front to back.
Ethan Pine ‘22 received all-conference honors finishing in tenth place with a time of 26:53. Brayden Curnutt ‘25 also received all-conference honors finishing in eleventh place in a time of 26:56. Drake Hayes ‘24 finished twenty-fourth place in a time of 27:28. The sophomore has had a breakout season and is the most improved runner on the squad. Ian Dickey ‘22 finished in thirty-second place, and Hunter Wakefield ‘22 finished in thirty-fourth place.
Coach McCreary said, “We ended up fourth that day. If you asked the team at the beginning of the year that is not a result that we would have wanted.”
However, circumstances changed throughout the year. McCreary said, “As the year turned out with our team and with the other teams, that is we ended up on that day and we walked away feeling good about it.” The team lacked a consistent and dominant front runner during the season which hurt the team’s scoring in every meet. And the team experienced a few injuries that hurt their mid-pack depth.
“Ethan Pine ended up in tenth place and Brayden Curnutt finished in eleventh, both being second-team all-conference. It is great that we were able to have a freshman finish so far up,” McCreary said.
Also,”Sophomore Drake Hayes finished 23rd and had a huge day for us, and that helped us out a lot. […] Fourth place made sense for our team considering the [front-runners] that other teams had, and we came up short in our pack running on Saturday. But as a team we have some good things to take away for the returners next year,” McCreary said.
Next week the Redpack will race at the NCAA Regional starting at 11.00 a.m., two hours before the start of the Monon Bell game.
Coach McCreary said, “This will be our first time at Shelbyville this year and our first time racing there since 2018 in the Regional. Since it is a larger meet, we will give our pack some high objectives in the race to stay tight and put ourselves in a position to allow us to be successful and allow us to crack into the top ten or twelve in positioning.”