The Delaware cross country team went up to DeSales University to compete against Division II and Division III at the DeSales Invitational. The course featured rolling hills through cornfields as well as a run through DeSales’ campus, but the unbalanced course led the way for many personal bests as the season really ramps up.
The men kicked off the meet with a 4th place team finish in the 8k. The team was led by senior Alex Horgan, who edged out a Swarthmore runner to secure second place with a time of 25:29.8. Freshman Matthew Kwiatkowski followed Horgan with a 10th place finish and his own personal best of 26:23.4, which passed Chris Kitson for 10th place on the all time cross country 8k leaderboard. He’s looking to climb up the leaderboard later on, as he said that he has already surpassed his time expectations for the season. Freshman Alejandro Lobo and junior Dan Giron took the next two spots for Delaware with personal bests of 27:28.5 and 28:05.6 respectively. The scoring five for Delaware was rounded out by freshman Evan Diefenbeck, who came in 69th place with a time of 28:14.8. Coming in not too far behind to finish off Delarare’s top seven was senior Sasha Latina at 28:24.9 and sophomore Aravind Arunachalam at 28:32.8.
The women followed the men with a 14th place team finish and having five of their top seven improving their times from two weeks ago by at least a minute. Leading the charge was freshman Kaitlyn Burke, who set a new personal best of 26:09.2, and senior Jenna Mlecko, who followed right behind at 26:10.4. Delaware’s third spot was junior Natalie Pinto, who improved on her personal best, coming in at 27:09.0. Rounding out the scoring five was senior Madeleine Dorley and freshman Camila Montes, who both set new season best times by over a minute at 27:40.8 and 28:04.4 respectively. Making their top seven debuts were Maddy Ciskowski and Leah Goodman, who finished close together at 28:10.7 and 28:17.5.
The meet also featured two Delaware XCTF alumni. Former club president Emily Hansell and former treasurer Schuyler Reed came out to wear the Delaware colors for one more time.
Delaware now moves on to their home meet, the Delaware Invitational, on October 15th.Full meet results can be found here.