Indiana cross country tied for second in the men’s and women’s races in the John McNichols Invitational in Terre Haute, Indiana on Saturday. Senior Skylar Stidam led the way for Indiana’s men with a third overall finish, while junior Mikaela Ramirez finished seventh to lead the way for Indiana’s women.
Prior to the meet, head coach Ron Helmer said the team would be withholding its top three runners on both the men’s and women’s side to give some of the newer runners on the team a chance to compete.
A full-strength Purdue team scored first out of the 12 teams that competed in the men’s 8K race. All of the top seven runners for the Purdue men finished in the top 15 and gave them a low score of 36, beating out Indiana and Eastern Illinois University which tied for second with 55 points each. Eastern Illinois’ Dustin Hatfield won the race with a time of 24:22.7 and Stidam’s team-leading time was 24:28.6.
Purdue also scored first in the women’s 5K race that featured 14 teams. Purdue had five runners in the top 10 to secure a low score of 24. Indiana followed in second with a score of 49. Eastern Illinois’ Lindsey Carlson ran a time of 17:37.8 to finish first in the race. For Indiana, Ramirez led the team with a time of 17:56.3.
