Cross-country team sees personal, overall improvement

Cross-country+team+sees+personal%2C+overall+improvement

by Jessica McDonald

Indianola, Iowa: Home to the 2003 Iowa Conference crosscountrymeet.

Nine teams in the IIAC came to Simpson College Saturday, Nov. 1to compete in the conference championships.

The women took 7th place for the Storm and the men took 8th.

Simpson competed against Luther, Wartbug, Coe, Loras, Dubuque,Centrall and Cormell.

Wartburg won the men’s competition and Luther’s women won theirmeet.

Sophomore Jen Wendt was the top qualifier for the Simpson womenplacing 7th with a time of 19:23.

Wendt’s performance last week was the best Simpson College hasseen since 1998 when Joni Snakenburg placed third.

Junior Nick Bowerman led the men’s team with a time of 27:31placing 18th.

“I was very pleased with both teams,” said head coach ErinBresnan. “Both teams are young and some individuals have never rancross-country before.”

Bresnan was also very pleased with the individualperformances.

Senior James Morgan turned in an outstanding performance at theconference meet.

Morgan dropped his best time by a minute.

“There has been so much personal improvement all around,” saidBresnan.

She looks forward to the future with the Simpson cross-countryteam.

“We have a good opportunity to really build on both teams atSimpson,” said Bresnan.

The women’s team will not loose a single runner.

The men’s team will only loose two runners for 2004.

For now, Simpson’s cross-country team looks forward to competingat the regional meet in two weeks.

They will be competing against 25 different teams, some of whichare ranked nationally.