Both the men and women’s cross-country teams finished fourth overall this past Saturday at the Bloomsburg Invitational on upper campus.
The men placing fourth out six teams and the women placing fourth out of eight teams. The men finished with a total of 83 points while the women finished with a total of 101. The women have an overall bigger roster with a total of 10 runners while the men have only 7. However, this hasn’t affected how well each team is doing in their season. The men and the women have been working very hard and their statistics prove it, don’t be fooled by the size of their rosters because that hasn’t affected them negatively at all.
The women’s team was helped immensely this weekend by 5 freshmen, which is a pretty big number of rookies. Among those helpful freshmen last Saturday were Nicole Keeley, Anna Rhoten, Emma Fortune, Sydney Koons, and Aly Schobel. The men also had some stars this past weekend. Those who shined were Hunter Jaratt, Kevin Konyar, Justin Ziegler, and Freshman Wayne Reilly.
The men have less freshmen then the women, but the older runners are still contributing to the team just as much as the younger ones. Head coach Bernie Empie has been coaching the men and women’s cross-country programs for 9 years now. He has been a huge asset for both teams but specifically the women.
The women have broken a total of 35 records since Empie started coaching and there are only 43 total records to possibly break for the university. It goes without saying that Empie has had a huge impact on the team over the years and is continuing his great coaching to both teams clearly exhibited by their records and their fourth-place achievement last Saturday.
Empie has earned two PSAC coach of the year honors throughout his career and has led the program to fourteen individual PSAC championships.
The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) championships are taking place this Friday, October 25th at home for both the men and women beginning at 10:00 am.
This is a good opportunity for all the athletes to demonstrate their hard work and for Empie to continue his great coaching of both teams.
The season is winding down for both teams but they are looking to finish out strong to hopefully not only improve their individual statistics but their team statistics too.