Stags and Athenas Finish Second At SCIAC Championships
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's and women's teams finished second at the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Cross Country Championships this past Saturday at La Mirada Regional Park. Both teams ran strong races, but came up short against Occidental College in each case.
The Stags, coming off a 7-0 performance at the SCIAC Multi-Dual meet couldn't overcome Occidental's 1-2-3 performance and lost 27-36 in a practical dual meet. The teams combined for 13 of the first 14 runners in the race with eight of those runners wearing a CMS jersey. The Stag pack, led by freshman Brian Kopczynski's (Coto de Caza) fourth place finish of 26:55, were separated by only 39 seconds. Kopczynski and Georgi Dinolov (Capitola), who finished nine places better than in the Multi-Dual and 13th overall, were the only freshmen in the top 13. The Stags had 10 of the first 21 runners overall and the top 11 runners for the team would have scored for six of the other seven teams. The team had the top runner in the conference at every position from their fifth to 19th and final runner.
The Athenas improved upon their third place finish from the Multi-Duals scoring 63 points to finish between Occidental's 43 and Redlands' 68. The team was once again led by junior Evelyn Ross (Iowa City, IA) who finished second overall with a 6K clocking of 22:55. The women also showed impressive depth with the best runner in the conference from their sixth through 11th and last runner. Eight of the Athenas finished in front of every other team's sixth runner. The top performance for the team was turned in by sophomore Allysa Rueschenberg (San Luis Obispo) who finished 19th overall an improvement of 31 places over her freshman finish. This was only the second time since 1994 that the team did not win the conference championship.
The team's combined for six First Team All-Conference runners (top 10 finishers) and eight Second Team All-Conference runners (11th - 20th). In addition to Kopczynski and Ross, the other First Team performers were Adam Coleman (SR, Clayton), Chris Gurney (JR, Ventura), Mike Van Antwerp (JR, Reno, NV) and Brad Johnson (SR, Oakland). The Second Team performers included Dinolov, Rueschenberg, Alex Kurtis (SO, Bellingham, WA), Florian Scheulen (SO, Encinitas), Kris Brown (FR, Seattle, WA), Taylor Smiley (FR, Beaverton, OR), Ashley Scott (FR, Battle Creek, MI) and Ariane Mohr-Felsen (JR, Laurel, MD).
Both teams will next compete in Estacada, OR at the West Regional meet on November 10. The meet will be held in McIver Park with the women racing at 11:00 and the men racing at noon.
