Mario Rothmund was the frontrunner for the menís cross country squad this past Friday at Eastern Michigan, finishing fifth out of 79 runners in the menís 8K race with a time of 25:27.
ìThat was a pretty good time for the course he ran,î Coach Cami Wells said.
The winner of the race was Chris Stine of Western Michigan, who finished 34 seconds ahead of the second-place runner with a time of 24:48. The University of Michigan took second through fourth place: Nate Brannen (25:22), Tarn Leach (25:23), and Nic Stanko (25:23), while Rothmund rounded out the top five with his 25:27 finish.
The other athletes to compete in the race included: Patrick Maynard (37th, 26:58), Kris Lachowski (51st, 27:50), Troy Stiles (54th, 27:52), Josh Stucky (66th, 28:46), Phil King (69th, 28:59) and Steve Blasko (78th, 31:13).
The meet was won by the University of Michigan, followed by Western Michigan, Marquette, Oakland University and Loyola to round out the top five schools in the meet. Bowling Green finished ninth out of the 11 schools that participated in the event.
Despite a disappointing finish, the men have a number of positive things they can take out of this meet. One of these things is that Kris Lachowski ran his best race of the season, taking almost half a minute off his previous best time. Coach Wells was particularly pleased with the performance of Patrick Maynard, who ran under 27 minutes for the first time this year.
ìHe ran much better than the previous week,î Wells said.