Re-cap of Midwest Collegiate Open at UW-Parkside

Men- Overall, I was very happy with our men. We had several great performances and I think we are moving in the right direction. Sophomore Blake Johnson was our #1 runner this past weekend with freshman Connor Callahan coming in only 2 seconds behind Blake. Connor ran an outstanding race for a freshman. The team did have a pretty big snag when our normal #1 runner, Nick Szczech, dropped out of the race with some heat issues. Nick is somewhat prone to heat exhaustion and he started getting dizzy and light-headed around the 4.5 mile mark. Losing your number one obviously hurts the team score, but our depth made up for the loss. Our other lone junior, Brice Cleland, is also experiencing some health issues that have left his energy stores a little depleted. We just found out that Brice's iron levels were deficient. So right now, my main priority is to get our normal #1 and #2 guys back to a healthy state so that this team can really roll. These guys are young, but they are stepping up in a big way! Here's how things unfolded for the guys this weekend:

6. Blake Johnson 25:32 sophomore
8. Connor Callahan 25:34 freshman
14. Peter Bolgert 25:59 sophomore
21. Brice Cleland 26:14 junior
25. Keith Schueller 26:20 sophomore (top 5 within 48 seconds)
28. Jerry Kerska 26:30 freshman
29. Patrick Keeley 26:32 sophomore (top 7 within 60 seconds)
33. Dominick Rosario 26:38 sophomore

Women- The women also had a great team performance this past weekend. We had some great front running, but we also had strong team depth. Its hard to be a good team without both! We went up against two other Big East schools in West Virginia and Louisville. West Virginia is currently ranked 4th in the country, however they held out three of their top women due to flu-like symptoms. Louisville and WVU tied for the win with 44 points and we earned 3rd place with 47 points. The Marquette women continue to impress me and the scary thing is that I know we can still run a lot better. With that being said, we're taking a slightly different approach this season in that we're taking it "one day at a time." Our slogan is, "just today." Too many times in the past we have looked too far ahead to future races. We're taking it one workout and one race at a time. Also, another big change is that several of the girls are taking at least one and sometimes two days off per week. We're trying to save our legs more for the harder workouts and races, hopefully leaving them healthy and fresh on race day. Let's hope this new strategy works out in the long-term! Here is how our girls did this weekend:

5. Olivia Johnson 18:02 junior
8. Jayne Grebinski 18:08 senior
10. Anna Weber 18:23 senior
11. Kristin Pelzel 18:24 junior
13. Molly Arenberg 18:26 junior (top 5 within 24 seconds)
23. Laurie Dalrymple 18:49 junior
24. Sarah Verdoliva 18:54 senior (top 7 within 52 seconds)