Teams from all around the state of Indiana flocked to West Lafayette on Friday to compete in the Indiana Intercollegiate cross-country meet. For many schools, it was an opportunity to battle it out with some of their biggest in-state rivals.
For IU, not so much.
After Coach Ron Helmer decided to rest his top runners, the Hoosiers went into Friday’s meet shorthanded. Behind sophomore Grace Walther’s sixth-place finish, the women’s team managed a third-place finish behind Purdue and Indiana State.
The men’s team did not record a full team score due to only having three finishers after two runners dropped out mid-race due to issues with the heat. Freshman Teddy Browning took the top spot for the men with a 15th-place finish.
Even though the final scores don’t show it, Helmer said he still saw the benefits of getting some of his role players out on the course and in a position to be leaders for at least a day.
“I thought both teams did some good things today,” Helmer said. “There weren’t any great things that we need to jump up and down and get too excited about, but I think the people we ran today are more comfortable when they fill the slots that they’re used to running.”
Purdue and Indiana State finished as the top two teams in the men’s race. With IU not fielding a full team, only two teams finished the race with enough runners to earn an official score. While Browning was the Hoosiers’ top finisher, freshman Cameron Clements ran his way to a 26th-place finish, and sophomore Adam Wallace was the only other IU finisher at 76th.
Though there weren’t any eye-popping performances from his team, Helmer said they got exactly what he wanted them to get out of the race.
“Not finishing five guys was a little frustrating, but we worked through it,” Helmer said. “Teddy Browning ran a pretty solid race after coming back from some sickness. He was right where we wanted him to be for most of the race.”
Ball State was the lone team that finished behind IU in the women's race. Walther’s impressive finish was the highlight of the day for Helmer’s squad while freshmen 800-meter runners Joely Pinkston (17th), Mallory Mulzer (18th) and Amy Smith (21st) and junior Kendell Wiles (35th) rounded out the scoring.
“I was really happy with our women’s team today,” Helmer said. “It was nice to see Grace up at the front all day. I was really pleased with the 800-meter runners who filled out our team as well because they competed really hard and beat a lot of people.”
Ultimately, Helmer took Friday’s race as an opportunity for his role players to get some extra training and to earn some valuable spots on each team. Now he’s looking ahead to next week when his top runners will be back on the course against much better competition at the Coast to Coast Battle in Beantown in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.
“The competition next week is going to be much tougher than what we saw this week,” Helmer said. “It’ll be our first chance to go against high-level competition, and we’re going to be pretty confident going in.”
