Depleted cross country squads continue to struggle

Competing against a small horde of nearly 200 runners, Saints cross country freshman Christa Collmer managed to place in the top 60 of the women’s 5K race at the Charles Bowles Invitational last Saturday in Salem.

Collmer was the highest MHCC finisher, placing 56th with a time of 19:43.
Though the women’s team ran without a complete team for the second week in a row, the team was able to snag a new member in freshman Monica Amaro, giving the women’s team its third member; they are now two away from a complete team.

In the women’s 5K, Amaro was the second MHCC finisher, placing 138th in 21:31, and was followed by sophomore Molly Scoles, who placed 180th in 23:31.

In a bit of a change from last week, the men’s team ran their first 8K race (5 miles) of the season, whereas at the opener they ran in a 4-mile race.
Freshman Vlad Ishenin once again led the Saints, placing 157th in 27:55, with his fellow freshmen coming in close behind with Nathan Geiter in 165th (28:05) and Alex Seymour in 168th (28:08).

The men’s team was without freshman Lt Avants at the meet, which brought them down to four runners, making both the men’s and women’s team incomplete and left out in the cold as far as team scoring is concerned.

Head cross country coach Matt Hart said Avants had an unspecified personal issue but should be participating in the next meet.

With both teams competing without full teams this last weekend, Hart, asked why recruiting has been as tough as it is, said, “Recruiting is such a big issue this year because without actively recruiting individuals to compete as team, we were at the mercy of whether or not people would walk onto the team.”
“We did have great luck with the people we have returning and the couple individuals we did recruit but we could have a much larger team if we were more active in recruiting,” he said.

The cross country team is taking this weekend off in their first of two bye-weeks this season.

With this extra time off, Hart is looking to bring that roster list up a bit more.
“We are hopeful that we will have more people interested in being a part of our team and participating in a great sport,” said Hart.

“There are definitely men and women on campus right now that could help our team but they may not know about the opportunity or don’t think they are good enough,” he said.

As such, Hart encourages any students who may be interested in running on the cross country team to contact him. Those interested can contact him at 503-491-7455 or at [email protected].

The team’s next meet is the Mike Hodges Invite on Oct. 12 at Clackamas Community College in Oregon City. The first race will begin at 3:30 p.m.