LOUISVILLE, Ky.—Senior Noah Hufnagel (Santa Claus, Indiana) used a record-breaking performance to lead University of Southern Indiana Men’s Cross Country to an 18th-place finish out of 31 teams in the gold race of the Live in Lou Cross Country Classic Saturday morning at E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park.
Hufnagel finished the eight-kilometer course in 23 minutes, 36.6 seconds to break the nearly 40-year old mark held by USI and Great Lakes Valley Conference Hall of Fame member Jim Nolan, who ran the 8K in 23:43.0 at the 1983 Indiana Intercollegiate. The record was the oldest mark in USI Cross Country/Track & Field history.
The performance was good enough for a ninth-place finish in the 308-competitor field and just over 18 seconds off the winning pace set by Grand Valley State University’s Tanner Chada.
As a team, the Eagles finished with 451 points, finishing five spots lower than fellow Ohio Valley Conference foe Eastern Illinois University, which was 13th with a score of 379. The two teams were fairly close through their top four competitors, with the Panthers holding a four-point edge, but a wide gap at No. 5 separated the two teams that could battle for an OVC title later this month.
Junior Mitchell Hopf (Santa Claus, Indiana) gave USI a huge boost at No. 2 as he finished 42nd with a time of 24:15.1, while sophomores Dylan Bland (Holland, Indiana) and Brady Terry (Philpot, Kentucky) were 104th and 119th, respectively. Junior Nick Dombroski (Noblesville, Indiana) finished 229th to round out USI’s top five, while freshmen Mukal Verma (Palatine, Illinois) and Carson Kleinhelter (Franklin, Indiana) rounded out the Eagles’ top seven with finishes with placements of 246th and 259th, respectively.
USI’s second team, which was 38th in the blue competition, was paced by senior Taylor Mills (Warsaw, Indiana), who was 114th out of 426 competitors.
The Eagles return to action October 14 when they compete at the Bradley Pink Classic in Peoria, Illinois. The OVC Championships are October 29 in Cookeville, Tennessee.
