It's only the start of the season, but the men and women's cross country teams are already showing some progress.
Buffalo hosted the UB Stampede Invitational on Saturday at Beaver Island State Park and faced the likes of Akron, Bowling Green, Niagara, Colgate and Robert Morris.
The men's team triumphed again and came in first place for the second consecutive year with 28 points. The women's cross country team placed third in the event with 68 points, right behind Mid-American Conference opponents Akron (20 points) and Bowling Green (59 points).
Senior Shelby Janutol, a former member of Division II school Ferris State, ran in her first event with the Bulls on Saturday for the 5K run.
She was at a 5:51 per mile pace throughout the race, which kept her in third place for a majority of the race. She finished in 18:08.1, good for seventh in a field of 59 runners.
Senior Sam Beim came in 11th with a time of 18:17, roughly a minute faster than last year's 19:20.
"We have a lot of promising new runners like [senior] Caitlin Curry and [senior] Shelby Janutol that will help increase the depth of the team," Beim said. "We also have a lot of strong seniors like [senior] Emma Denton and [junior] Katie Sanders."
Last year, Buffalo finished 10th among 12 teams at the 2011 MAC Championships in Muncie, Ind. and 25th of 36 teams when the Bulls hosted the NCAA Northeast Regionals.
"Our performance at the Stampede Invitational this year is hard to compare with last year's finish because of the different levels of competition," Beim said. "But overall a lot of us ran personal bests or outdid our times from last year by far."
The men's team had some notable performances on Saturday. Ten of the 18 men on Buffalo's roster are freshmen, and this was their first collegiate 8K run.
The Bulls got off to a good start. At the three mile mark, there were four Bulls in the top 10 with a group of five Colgate members slightly behind.
Buffalo's junior Zachary Ahart came in second place finishing with in 25:19.2. Junior Mike Pressler and sophomore Alex Saavedra also finished in the top five.
"The guys ran very well. It's nice to see Zach Ahart as a junior, Alex Saavedra as a sophomore and Isaac Hagen as a senior running smoothly and consistently," said head coach Vicki Mitchell. "We are racing through our training."
The new faces on both the men and women's team appear promising. Both teams came back stronger this year in hopes of improving when the Bulls host the MAC championships in October.
Buffalo's next meet will be on Sept. 28 in Bethlehem, Penn. for the Paul Short Invitational.
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Photo: Paul Hokanson/UB Athletics
