Men's Championship Results / Women's Championship Results
Men's Open Results / Women's Open Results
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The women's cross country team finished ninth, while the men's took 20th at the NCAA Pre-Nationals race. The meet featured 12 teams ranked or receiving votes in the latest NCAA Division I Cross Country Coaches' Poll on the women's side and 17 on the men's side.
Hope Schmelzle continued her run as the top runner for the Boilermaker women. The junior finished the 6,000-meter championship race in 20:38.5, good for 36th place. Sophomore Kendall Hacker had one of her top performances of the season, finishing second for Purdue and 47th overall with a time of 20:43.4. Kiara McIntosh was the third finisher for the Boilermakers. The junior crossed the finish line in 21:11.8 and 107th place.
Katie Hoevet was close behind McIntosh. She finished 124th with a time of 21:15.7. Freshman Mary Abramson rounded out the scoring with a 146th-place finish time of 21:25.7.
"Hope and Kendall led the charge for us on the women's side with big 6k PRs," assistant coach Jeff Kent said. "They did a really good job of asserting themselves early in the race. I think what's a testament to this group is that when someone has a down day, we have the interchangeable parts to fill that void. If we can walk away from a race and beat three nationally ranked teams when we didn't have our best day, that's a really good indicator of what we can do at the Big Ten Championships and beyond. We had seven runners under 22 minutes and several PRs. I think our push is to continue to close the gap from third, fourth and fifth runners. That will be paramount to our success at the Big Ten meet."
The women finished ninth with 441 points. The Boilermakers finished ahead of No. 26 Villanova, No. 29 Cornell and vote-getter California.
On the men's side, Matthew McClintock was Purdue's top finisher for the third time this season. The senior finished 27th overall with an 8,000-meter time of 23:43.6. Jacob Hanawalt was the second finisher for the Boilermakers, the highest of his career. Hanawalt took 88th overall with a time of 24:15.8. Tate Schienbein was right behind him. The senior finished 92nd with a time of 24:16.2.
Caleb Kerr was Purdue's fourth finisher on Saturday. The senior finished 149th with a time of 24:38.6. Alex Milner rounded out the scoring with an 189th place finish and a time of 24:51.4.
"One of the big storylines on the day was Jake (Hanawalt)," Kent said. "He ran so effectively over the last two kilometers. Unfortunately, our team was one of many who fell victim to an overcrowded field of 288 runners with very little room to move. Having four of our top seven get jammed and even fall to the ground in one situation, that really hurt us early on. I thought we did a good job of keeping our composure and salvaging what we could out of the race. I am very excited where this group of men is programmatically heading into the Big Ten meet. They are very fit and very confident, as they should be."
The men's team finished 20th with 545 points. The Boilermakers finished ahead of Ohio State and Minnesota among Big Ten teams. They also finished ahead of North Texas, Kentucky and Georgia, who all received votes in the latest poll.
The Boilermakers return to action next week at the Illinois Open for a final tune up before the Big Ten Championships.