CEDARVILLE, Ohio - The Tiffin men claimed five top-20 finishes to take second while Carly Reese claimed a second place finish to help the women place sixth at the 20th Annual Friendship Invitational Saturday morning in Cedarville, Ohio.
"I was very happy and it was a great race for Carly. Almost down to the letter, she did what we had talked about the last two weeks," explained head women's cross country coach Thomas Buxton.
In the women's 5k race, Reese took second with a time of 18:49.85, 11 seconds behind winner Kelsey Devereaux of Indiana Wesleyan. Ashley Gilroy took 12th in 19:27.17 while Rebecca Miller took 22nd just 12 seconds behind Gilroy.
"Ashley may have come out a little faster out of the gate then we would have liked, but she is a freshman so I expected things like that to be honest," said Buxton.
Finishing 53rd, 54th, 57th and 59th on the women's side for Tiffin was Tichelle Brant, Sam Hassen, Cassandra Kohler and Ashley Madison, all finishing within 21 seconds of each other.
"One of the things I loved was our pack time. Our 4-5-6-7 was very close so we have the fundamentals down. So, when one of those girls improves their time, the whole pack will follow," said Buxton.
The Dragon men were edged out by host and nationally-ranked Cedarville 62-70. Jeremy Lee took 10th with a time of 26:09.67, with teammate Dom O'Neill crossing the line two spots later three seconds behind Lee. Rounding out the Tiffin top-20 finishers were Jason Bumb in 13th (26:12.84), Mike Eblin in 17th (26:25.81) and Kyle Anderson in 18th (26:26.69).
"We had only a 17-second gap between the first and fifth finisher, which is phenomenal," head men's cross country coach Ron Martin said. "Our front runners did not run up where I know they can and where they know they can. Buts it's a long season and they were being cautious. We did not even run our third guy from two weeks ago
"It was a great start on an official 8k course. It was a beautiful day and Cedarville is a great course."
Brent Hunter, in his first collegiate 8k race, finished a solid 21st with a time of 26:35.92.
"It was a great first 8k race for Brent and all of our youngsters coming in," added Martin.
Tiffin returns to action Saturday, Oct. 2 when they travel to Louisville, Ky. to preview the NCAA regional course at Bellarmine.
