Several breakthrough performances highlighted a very strong effort by the Bruin men at Saturday's Holiday Inn Express Cross Country Classic hosted by Dordt University.
A quality field of runners traversed the three loops of the Dordt Prairie, highlighted by a dominating performance by the No. 13 ranked Dordt men. The Defenders placed all seven of their runners in the top ten for a low team total of 18 with just one Northwestern Iowa runner breaking up the perfect 1-2-3-4-5 score. The Bruins, despite running without their usual third man, placed a solid fifth place among the nine complete teams.
The Bruins saw some big personal best improvements from a few of their scorers as they eye the conference meet about a month away. The Bruins' top two scorers ran solid races as usual. Desyebelew Debesh led the Bruins with a 24th place finish in the field of 116. His 26:46.0 time over eight kilometers was an eight-second improvement over his season-best from a week ago at Briar Cliff. Second runner Peyton Anthony continued his assault on breaking 27 minutes as he has improved from 27:22 to 27:07 and now 27:02.9 at today's meet. That time was good for 27th place, just behind Debesh. The eye-opening performances came from the Bruins' three and four men. Edrei Murillo cut half a minute from his lifetime best as he crossed in 27:30.3 in 38th. Four spots back in 42nd, Kaleb Wooten cut thirty-five seconds from his best running 27:44.4. With Chris Casart out of the lineup, the fifth scorer responsibility fell to Aaron Newton who responded with a season-best 28:57.9 in 67th place. Cole Wagner drove the Bruins home in 31:56.9 in 108th place.
Head Coach Craig Christians: "It was just a very solid performance again by the guys. I continue to be impressed with the way they go to work every day and the results they're producing. Des and Peyton are turning into frontrunners and it's fun to watch them stick their noses into the fight. I was so excited to see the way Edrei and Kaleb raced. Those are huge personal bests, I'd call them breakthrough races. I've been waiting for Edrei to pop one for a while and it was so great to see it happen. Kaleb is just a freshman and doesn't have a lot of running experience as a high schooler but he is just following guys around and getting the job done at a high level. Aaron came through in the clutch for us with a great effort so I applaud his efforts today. We rested Chris this week and when he is back, we have five guys under 27:45, easily the best group we've had in the history of the program."
The Bruins will be back in action in two weeks (Oct. 23) when they travel to Yankton, SD for the Mount Marty Invite. The meet will be held at the Fox Run Golf Course with the men's race going off at 11:15.
