PEORIA, Ill. - The Iowa State women's team claimed the team title at the seventh annual Bradley Classic and the Iowa men's squad took the title on the men's side Friday afternoon at Newman Golf Course. Senior Mary Goldkamp (Florissant, Mo./McCluer North) finished 10th and helped the Bradley women's team to a seventh-place finish, while senior Andrew Weiser (Chesterfield, Mo./Parkway Central) paced the Bradley men's team to a 15th-place showing.
DePaul's Matthew Graham overtook Iowa's Jeff Thode in the final 50 yards to win the men's individual title by four-tenths of a second and finished with a course record time of 23:37 for the 8K. In the women's race Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Elise Sigg won the individual title, crossing the line 12 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Casey McDermott of Drake. Sigg's time of 21:05 is the seventh fastest 6K time in the seven-year history of the event.
Iowa State won the women's title with a total of 69 points with DePaul following in second at 131 and Saint Louis rounding out the top three at 149. The Bradley women's team finished seventh at 184, eight points behind sixth-place Northwestern (176). In the men's race, Iowa had three of the top five individual finishers and won the team title with 67 points with Southern Illinois taking second at 105 points. The Bradley men's team was 15th overall at 383.
"We made a lot of progress today," Bradley head coach Marc Burns said. "I always want to see our teams continue to get better from week to week. I this we saw that today, especially on the women's side. We also had many personal bests on the men's side."
Goldkamp was one of three women's runners to set career-best 6K times and Weiser was one of eight men's runners to clock career-best 8K times Friday afternoon for the Braves. Goldkamp was one second better than her previous career-best 6K time, crossing the line at 21:42 to finish 10th overall. She was 15 seconds out of fifth place and 37 seconds back of first.
Freshman Cassie Lohmeier (East Peoria, Ill./East Peoria) finished 23rd overall at 22:11 and fellow frosh Whitney Schumacher (Appleton, Wis./Kimberly) turned in a time of 22:24 in her first career 6K to finish 31st in the field. Senior Lauren Fog (Harvard, Ill./Harvard) ran a career-best time of 22:55 to finish 58th, while sophomore Emily Gustafson (East Peoria, Ill./East Peoria) rounded out the scoring for the Braves, finishing 68th at 23:08.
Weiser improved his career-best 8K time for the third consecutive outing and was 50th overall at 25:24 to lead the men's squad. Following Weiser was senior Zach Bowling (Heyworth, Ill./Heyworth/Danville Area C.C.), who clocked a career-best 25:35 to finish 62nd. Senior Brian Tyne (Polo, Ill./Polo) was 88th with a career-best time of 25:56, while freshman Thomas Harayda (Peoria, Ill./Richwoods) ran a season-best 25:56 to finish 101st in the 211-person field. Senior Jon Richards (Streator, Ill./Streator) crossed the line in a career-best time of 26:16 and was 116th overall.
Turning in career-best times in the men's race were senior Michael Donini (Henry, Ill./ Henry-Senachwine/Illinois Central College), junior Chris Frank (Springfield, Ill./Sacred Heart-Griffin) and sophomore Nick Skromme (Ottawa, Ill./Marquette), while three freshmen set season-best times.
Five individuals on the women's side competed in their first career 6K, while junior Sarah Hallstein (Minier, Ill./Olympia) broke her career-best time by almost two minutes (24:15).
Both the men's and women's cross country teams return to action Saturday, Oct. 30 at the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Cross Country Championships in Augusta, Kan.
