Bulldog cross country compete at Roy Griak Invitational

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Hot weather and a challenging course could not slow the Concordia Bulldogs as the competed in the Roy Griak Invitational in St. Paul, MN. The Concordia women continued to impress, placing 11th of 37 teams in the Maroon II race while the men’s squad took a positive step forward, placing 24th of 37 teams.  

Sophomore Emily Sievert, seemingly back to full health after wrestling with sickness, emerged as the front runner for the Bulldogs, placing 40th overall in 24:26. Sophomore Jordyn Sturms continued her strong, early-season push with a time of 24:33 to take 50th place. Not far behind was senior Kim Wood in 24:40 and a 57th place finish. Sophomore Lauren Wilcox and senior Megan Burma rounded out the top five with times of 25:31 and 25:34 respectively.

“We had three gals who ran real well up front,” head coach Kregg Einspahr said. “We still need to get out and have a little bit better of a front runner, but having those three gals up in the top 65 runners really helped a lot. We had a big gap between our three and four but we have about three, four, five girls who can fill in that spot for us. We just need to close that up a little bit better. I think smaller races, a little more confidence, and moving to a 5K distance is really going to help us a lot.

“We had a really good meet today, so I’m really happy with that,” Einspahr said. “It was good competition. It was nice to finish right behind Dordt. There were a lot of good teams in there; that was a good division two race. We looked pretty good, I thought overall. We improved over last week, ran better, and that’s the idea; improve all season long and I think we’re going to.”

On the men’s side, senior Jordan Potrzeba ran a strong collective race, maintaining solid position and steadily making his way up through the 8,000 meter race. Potrzeba finished in 27:30 to place 48th overall. Sophomore Kholton Gabehart came through with a solid performance, edging out freshman teammate Thomas Taylor at the tape in 28:48 and 28:49 respectively. Senior Taylor Mueller finished in 29:01 while junior Chris Shelton rounded out the top five in 29:45.

“We ran a better race today than we did last week, so I think we made some big improvements,” Einspahr said. “We looked a lot better. We competed a lot better. The times weren’t very good, but the course as a whole was a little on the slow side today, for whatever reason. The course was pretty soft. There’s been a little bit of rain lately and it was warm too. All the teams ran a little bit slower, I noticed. But competitively I thought we had a lot better race. Kholton Gabehart and Jordan Potrzeba ran a lot better today. Thomas Taylor had a really good day. We’ll come around and get a little bit better. It’s tough to do back to back with a five mile race and a long trip as well. I thought we had a great meet and outstanding competition. We looked a lot better.”   

The Bulldogs will have two intensified weeks of training as they prepare for the Briar Cliff Invite at McCook Lake in S.D. on Sat. Oct. 10.