Re-cap of the DePaul Opener-

http://www.gomarquette.com/sports/c-xc/marq-c-xc-body.html

Women-
Overall, I was very happy with the women's performance at the DePaul meet. It was a 4-team meet between Marquette, DePaul, Northwestern, and Loyola. It was a fantastic way for us to open our season. Our top five ladies went- 1,2,3,5,7 with a total team score of only 18 points. Times weren't tremendously fast because of the thick grass and several 180 turns. Jayne Grebinski looked very comfortable in her victory. She took command of the race at about the mile mark and never looked back. I was also very impressed with Kristin Pelzel's performance. Despite this being her junior year in college, Kristin has never had a full summer of training due to constant injury. She was in 2nd place for most of the race until Olivia Johnson passed her with 400m to go. Olivia also ran a strong race to finsh 2nd place in the race and for our team. Anna Weber ran a solid race to place 5th and newcomer Molly Arenberg rounded out the scoring for MU placing 7th overall. Besides the alumni race, this was Molly's first competitive XC race EVER!! I was also very impressed with our 6th runner, Sarah Verdoliva. Sarah was 9th in the race. This is only Sarah's 5th XC race ever and she still has much room to improve. We did hold out two ladies who would have definitely been in our top 8, Laurie Dalrymple- bruised foot and Courtney Kelly- Achilles tendinitis. Here's how everyone did:

1) Jayne Grebinski 14:28
2) Olivia Johnson 14:33
3) Kristin Pelzel 14:37
5) Anna Weber 14:49
7) Molly Arenberg 14:52
9) Sarah Verdoliva 15:00
17) Amanda Beggs 15:18
18) Maureen Keane 15:21
19) Carly Windt 15:23
25)Christina Sliepka 15:43
26) Kate Horan 15:45
30) Carly Condon 16:02
32) Bekki Misanin 16:11
33) Jessa Hackman 16:14
41) Melissa Budelier 16:39

Men-
The men weren't quite as dominating as the women; however they easily won the meet and I was very pleased with their performances. We had some nice front running and we had a great pack. We'll need to work on getting our 3 and 4 runners closer to our #2. Nick Szczech led the golden eagles placing 2nd in the 4-mile race. Nick ran even 5:00min pace to finish at 20:00. After all of his struggles last year, I am so happy to see this guy running well. Sophomore Blake Johnson placed 4th overall with a very strong race. Blake has always been very reliable. Brice Cleland should have placed a little higher, but he is still recovering from a knee injury he sustained this summer. He seems to be getting stronger each week and I'm sure he'll be racing alongside of Blake by our next meet at Parkside. Brice ended up being our #4 runner at DePaul, placing a few seconds behind freshmen Connor Callahan from St. Louis. Sophomore Peter Bolgert wrapped up our team scoring finishing a very respectful 11th. Peter is another guy who suffered from injuries almost all of last year. It's great to see him back training and racing strong! Here's how the guys did:

2) Nick Szczech 20:00
4) Blake Johnson 20:23
9) Connor Callahan 20:39
10) Brice Cleland 20:42
11) Peter Bolgert 20:52
12) Dominick Rosario 20:56
13) Patrick Keeley 20:57
14) Jack Senefeld 21:01
15) Patrick Maag 21:09
16) Jack Hackett 21:10
18) Keith Schueller 21:13
22) Anthony Gedwill 21:22
25) Jon Newman 21:40
27) Taylor Peliska 21:49
28) Jerry Kerska 21:51

Our next meet is at UW-Parkside on Saturday September 19th.