Titans Open Season With Seventh-Place Finish

UW-Oshkosh began its 2017 men's cross country season by finishing seventh among 10 teams at the Vic Godfrey Open on Saturday (Sept. 9) in Somers.

Brian McKnight led the Titans by completing the 8,000-meter course with a 27th-place time of 26:39.

NCAA Division I Marquette University, which owned five of the meet's top 11 runners, captured the team title with 27 points. Division I DePaul University (Ill.) finished second in the team standings with 74 points while Division II schools UW-Parkside and Michigan Tech placed third and fourth with 94 and 110 points, respectively. Division III University of Chicago (Ill.) took fifth place with 133 points.

UW-Oshkosh, one of three Division III programs at the meet, tallied 194 points to gather its seventh-place finish.

In addition to McKnight, UW-Oshkosh also received scoring efforts from Lucas Weber, Michael Juarez, Dan Massey and Cody Chadwick. Weber finished 30th with a time of 26:43 while Juarez placed 52nd in 27:14, Massey 64th in 27:39 and Chadwick 67th in 27:43. The Titans also had Noah O'Neill place 71st in 27:49, Jacob Rost 80th in 28:03 and Andrew George 81st in 28:04.

UW-Parkside's Armando Torres won the race of 167 runners with a time of 25:05. Following 10 seconds behind Torres at 25:15 was second-place finisher Daniel Pederson of Marquette University, which also took the next two listings as Alec Miller finished third and Jon Klaiber fourth with times of 25:16 and 25:33, respectively. Chris Korabik of DePaul University finished fifth with a time of 25:44.

The meet also featured UW-Oshkosh's Bennett Krueger finishing 85th with a time of 28:10, Jack Rindahl 86th in 28:11, Skyler Yunk 94th in 28:22, Noah Bruehl 95th in 28:22, Spencer Muffler 109th in 28:48, Collin Borazo 110th in 28:48, Austin Baker 122nd in 29:10 and Bob Szymanski 123rd in 29:12.

UW-Oshkosh competes at UW-Whitewater's Tom Hoffman Invitational next Saturday (Sept. 16).

- Codie Muthig -