By Taylor Mueller, Athletic Communications Student Assistant
CRETE, Neb. – Jordan Potrzeba and Kim Wood again served as frontrunners for head coach Kregg Einspahr’s squads in leading fourth-place and fifth-place GPAC championships finishes, respectively, for the Concordia University men’s and women’s cross country teams. With top-10 individual finishes on the course in Crete, Neb., on Saturday morning, Potrzeba and Wood claimed berths to the NAIA national championships later this month.
Wood led the Bulldog charge one last time with her 10th-place overall finish in 19:00.55 while sophomore Emily Sievert finished on her heels in 19:00.72 in 11th place. Wood qualified for the national meet with her performance though it is yet to be determined if Sievert will join her on the trip to Charlotte, NC. Sophomore Jordyn Sturms finished in 14th place overall with a time of 19:09. Wood, Sievert and Sturms garnered all-conference honors with their performances. Sophomore Beth Rasmussen and freshman Taylor Grove rounded out the top five with their finishes of 20:00 and 20:03, respectively.
With high hopes of perhaps earning a spot in the national meet pending their performance at the conference meet, the women fell short of their goal, taking fifth place as a team.
“We would have liked to have finished a little higher in the conference standings, but we knew that there were about five or six very comparable teams going into the conference meet,” Einspahr said. “Overall I thought we had a really good day today. It was great competition. I thought our top three gals did a really nice job. They had very good races to finish top fifteen in the conference, so overall we ran really well, particularly with our top three runners. We still had almost a minute gap between our three runner and our number four runner. That’s what really hurt us today. We didn’t have anyone to plug in and fill in those middle areas. That gap between our three and four, all season long we’ve been struggling with that. Today was no different. We tried, tried, tried and talked about that and we couldn’t close that gap up.”
“Those top three gals did a nice job and overall, all I have to say are good things to say about the women’s team,” Einspahr said. “They were very coachable and worked hard all season. I thought they had a really good race today. I’m very happy with how they ran.”
Despite her substantial effort, Wood expressed a bit of discontentment in her performance, acknowledging that she did not do as well as she would have liked.
“I didn’t feel the best about my race today,” Wood said. “I felt like in the middle of the race between one and a half to two and a half miles, I let people get in front of me which is really disappointing because we’ve been working hard on that this season, not to let people pass you in the middle part of the race where it gets tough. I let that happen so it’s a little disappointing. I wasn’t completely satisfied with my race but it’s still an improvement from last year.”
Despite her disappointments, Wood expressed her excitement regarding the upcoming race, which will be the last of her stellar four-year career.
“I’m super happy,” Wood said. “It’s taken me four years to get there and finally I have done it so it’s just a really good feeling. And especially as a senior, my season hasn’t ended yet and I can prolong it just a little, so that’s good. It’s good to know that I have one more race and I can go out with a bang.”
With numerous runners set to return to the Concordia program, Einspahr expressed optimism for what the future may hold.
“We had a lot of young runners on the team and that bodes well for the future,” Einspahr said. “Out of our top nine runners, we will only lose one runner, so that’s very promising for the future so we have a lot to look forward to.”
The men’s squad pieced together their best performance of the season. Having improved significantly each race along the way, the men capped the season with numerous strong performances and improvements.
Senior Jordan Potrzeba was nothing short of exceptional, finishing in sixth place overall with a time of 26:18. Potrzeba will be boarding the plane to Charlotte for the national meet to go along with his all-conference honors.
“It feels pretty great,” Potrzeba said of once again earning his way to the national meet. “It’s always been a goal. I set it early in the summer after the track season. I wanted to go to nationals and I wanted to go to nationals with the team. Hopefully we get an at-large berth. I was determined that I was going to make it. I trained as hard as I could, listened to my coaches and ran with my teammates. I couldn’t do it without them. They helped me prepare for this moment.”
Potrzeba explained his plan and goals going into the conference meet as well as the immense feelings of pride he had for his fellow teammates following their performance.
“My game plan was to beat Dordt, Doane and Northwestern’s top guys,” Potrzeba said. “If I could do that, I could give our team a chance to do really well. I knew that if we got good position that would fare us pretty well. We went out hard as a team, we got great position and had our best race of the year. I just held it and didn’t give up. There’s no quit in us and that’s what I saw today from us. I’m so proud of us.”
Senior Taylor Mueller finished in 25th place overall with a time of 27:11, followed closely by emerging junior Chris Shelton who took 27th in 27:13. Freshman Cameron Moes broke out with his best race of the season, placing fourth for the Bulldogs with a time of 27:29 while freshman Thomas Taylor took fifth for Concordia in 27:30.
“The guys ran lights out today,” Einspahr said. “They really ran well. They beat a team in Dordt… who was receiving votes and has been rated this season. Just tremendous races from the whole team I thought. We finished fourth, especially considering that our first meet out we finished 13th of 15 teams. We improved every meet all season. This was by far our best meet. We went out and got good position very aggressively. The guys managed to work together early on in the race, even in later parts of the race they still worked together. They held their spots real well.
“Cameron Moes really came through with a good race today,” Einspahr said. “I think that was his first meet of the year that he’s run in our top five group. He really came through with a nice race and really competed well. Chris Shelton had his best race by far this season. Of course Jordan Potrzeba has been improving all season and has been looking like a real good front runner for us. He came through with an excellent race and finish. That was a nice team effort and we’ve had really great team leadership from Jordan and Taylor Mueller as seniors. I’m extremely pleased with the guys’ race today. They ran well.”
As Potrzeba gears up for a couple more weeks of training before his cross country finale, he explained that he is taking every day one step at a time and is careful not to get too far ahead of himself.
“When nationals gets here, I’ll prep for it like I have these other races. I’m still going to work hard as I always have. I wasn’t really thinking too much about nationals. I was just focused on getting to this point and this meet in the season.”
The national meet will be on Saturday, Nov. 21 in Charlotte, N.C.