Louisville cross country has mixed results in split weekend

By Harry Barsan

This past weekend, the Louisville Cardinals took on the Live in Lou Classic on their home turf and the Sean Earl Lakefront Invitational in Chicago in a split weekend for cross country.

For the women’s team, Brooke Lahee and Ellie Maurer landed at 49th and 50th place, respectively, finishing at 17:53, a career personal record for both women.

After Megan John matched her time from last year’s Lou Classic with an 18:55, Audrey Shelton (19:25) and Lily Storey’s PR (19:35) rounded out the bunch. The ladies’ three PRs led to a 23rd place finish overall.

On the other hand, the men’s team was led by Sophomore Jacob Puhalla’s 131st place finish (25:49). In only his second 8k since 2022, Ryan Farrel came second on the team in 148th (26:02) followed shortly after by Chip Smith in 153rd (26:09).

The team capped off their scoring with Mateo Mendez’s 173rd place finish, good for fourth best on the team (26:32). JB Terrell’s 27:29 followed in 183rd, a 29 second improvement from his finish at last year’s Lou Classic. The men’s performance was good for 25th place at the meet.

The Cardinals also fielded teams in Chicago Friday.

A terrific trio of Cardinals led the women in the 5k. Nancy Chepleting (19:55), Layla Roebke (19:56) and Rylee Penn (20:04) came in 10th, 11th, and 13th place, respectively, to start the scoring. All three runners reached new PRs.

Maddie Seaby then matched her teammates with a PR of her own, running a 20:33 which was good for 36th place. Heidi Meade claimed 51st with a PR as well at 20:47, capping off a strong performance. Altogether, the women claimed 4th place overall at the meet.

The men’s 8k was headlined by Ian Kibiwot’s massive 37 second PR, as he claimed 4th overall with a time of 22:50. Geoffrey Kirwa (23:44) and Gustav Bendsen (24:17) each ran impressive PRs of their own.

The pack was wrapped up by Innocent Ntwali (24:37) and Jack Stansell (24:52). The three-PR performance led the men to an 11th place team finish.

The Cardinals’ next meet is the Wisconsin Pre-Nationals in Madison on Oct. 19.