The Iowa men’s cross-country team wrapped up the 2015 season by placing 15th at the Midwest Regional.
Oklahoma State won the meet for the third year in a row, totaling only 59 points. Minnesota finished right behind at 95. Iowa scored 408 points.
Coming off of an individual conference title, Tulsa sophomore Marc Scott won the meet with a time of 29:37.1.
Ben Anderson led the Hawks, finishing 48th with a time of 31:17.9.
“I think I raced pretty well,” he said. “[I] had a bounce back from Big Tens.”
Michael Melchert, who came in as one of the Hawkeyes’ top runners, did not finish the race. The sophomore dropped out after losing a shoe mid-race.
“We put ourselves in a position to do well, but unfortunately, with the loss of Melchert, we didn’t finish as strongly the last six minutes of the race,” head coach Layne Anderson said in a release. “At about the 5K mark, [Melchert] got stepped on, and his shoe came off. I think he tried to run a little after that, but the course had too difficult of footing.”
Hawkeye Anthony Gregorio followed Ben Anderson, finishing 54th, and Kevin Docherty came in at 80th. Daniel Soto (114), Nate Ferree (126), and Ian Eklin (143) rounded out the rest of the pack.
While the results may not have been what the runners desired, many gained knowledge that may turn out to be valuable.
“For all our guys, whether it was our first or our third 10K, we all gained experience, and that is invaluable,” Ben Anderson said.
Midwest Regional champion Oklahoma State’s mindset heading into the meet was to be patient.
“We will probably run patiently through the first few thousand meters and watch to see which other teams want to push,” Oklahoma director of cross-country Dave Smith said prior to the meet. “After that, we will react and try to chase down any early leaders.”
The Cowboys came into the meet ranked sixth in the nation, first in the region.
Smith expressed his satisfaction with how his team has performed up to this point. Oklahoma State had some concerns with inconsistency — its top seven runners had shuffled around throughout the season. This did not hinder the harriers.
“I am really proud of this team and the way they have matured as a group over the course of the season,”Smith said. “As we rest up even more over the next couple of days, we will get better still.”
All but one of Smith’s runners placed in the top 30, five in the top 17.
While Tulsa’s Scott was crowed individual champion, he had a strong supporting cast. Junior Luke Traynor and sophomore Benjamin Preisner placed seventh and 11th for the Hurricanes, who placed fourth overall.
Head coach Steve Gulley believed that going into the meet, his young team would be able to build on recent momentum from a conference title.
“We have a very young squad coming off perhaps their best race of the season at conference,” he said. “So if our young runners can take a lot of confidence from that and build on that performance, we should be in a good spot to run well.”
While Iowa’s cross-country season came to an end on Nov. 13, most runners will continue into track and field, whose season starts in the winter.