Oct. 17, 2009
Contact: Greg Murphy
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Cleveland State cross country team closed its regular season slate by competing at the Falcon Invitational on Saturday morning at the BGSU Golf Course.
All six runners set personal-bests on the six-kilometer course, while a pair of athletes also posted personal-best times at the five-kilometer mark.
The Vikings placed 11th overall of 19 teams with 337 points, trailing 10th place Eastern Michigan, ninth place Wright State (274), eighth place Detroit (229) and seventh place Youngstown State (220), the later three Horizon League schools.
"We wanted to finish ahead of at least one league school today, but unfortunately that didn't happen," head coach Joe Jaketic said. "But overall, it was a great day for our runners as all six set personal-bests in the 6K race. I am impressed with the way we have been progressing as a team and am optimistic that we can knock some more time off before the league championship in two weeks.
"They have been running really hard for the last two weeks and it will be a tough week ahead before we taper off for the league meet," Jaketic continued. We are going to work on getting out of the starting line quicker and work on speed."
Allison Craine was CSU's top finisher, placing 68th in 24:08, while Brittany Elmlinger was 73rd at 24:13.
Andria Bazilevich was the Vikings next finisher, coming in 81st place with a time of 24:27, including a 20:30 5K mark which is a CSU personal-best. Kelly Zaleski was 92nd overall in 24:38, while Jordan Hoile placed 97th in 24:48, knocking more than two minutes off her time from last season at the same event.
Hoile also set a personal-best with a 20:44 at the 5K mark.
"Jordan has really stepped it up the last few weeks for us," Jaketic said.
The gap between Craine and Hoile, CSU's first and fifth finishers, was just 40 seconds, including just 22 seconds at the 5K mark. It was the smallest gap in program history.
"Our goal all season has been to close the gap between the first and fifth runners and we have continued to do that," Jaketic said. "It's always more fun to run together as a group and that is what we have been doing lately."
CSU RESULTS
68. Allison Craine, 24:08
73. Brittany Elmlinger, 24:13
81. Andria Bazilevich, 24:27
92. Kelly Zaleski, 24:38
97. Jordan Hoile, 24:48
119. Rachel Niemi, 25:32
