<ross country team made its season debut in the NCAA Central Region rankings at #9 this week after a great team race at the Dan Huston Invitational in Waverly, Iowa last Saturday.
The Knights finished fourth as a team, falling only to nationally-ranked Augustana, Wisconsin-Platteville and Wisonsin-LaCrosse.
More importantly, Carleton defeated host Wartburg by one point and Cornell by two. These two squads entered the meet ranked 8th and 7th in the Central region, respectively.
Once again, Charlie Gamble ’10 set the pace for Carleton, finishing fourth overall in a season-best 26:04. Gamble finished just 15 seconds behind the leader, Platteville’s Jason Garvins, despite a mishap with two kilometers to go.The Knight captain moved to the front just after the five-kilometer mark before Cornell’s Andrew Tobben stepped on Gamble’s heel, pulling his shoe off his foot.
He took a gamble, electing to stop and try to fix his footwear. After an unsuccessful attempt to put his shoe back on, the resilient Carl continued, and finished the race with his shoe only half on.
John Davis ’11 ran a season-best 26:45 to finish 23rd, passing three LaCrosse runners and Cornell’s #3 man in the final meters to help seal the Knights’ team place.
Bobby Davis ’13 accompanied his older brother for much of the race, falling behind the elder Davis only in the last few kilometers and finishing third for the Knights in a personal-best 27:03.
Wisconsinites Colin Sinclair ’11 and Josh Campbell ’13 rounded out the scoring, finishing 45th and 46th, both in personal bests. Sinclair’s race status was questionable even on the eve of the competition, due to a persistent injury to his buttocks. Thankfully the junior decided to make the trip, and used his devastating finishing kick to propel himself past a large pack of racers over the final quarter mile.
Personal bests were plentiful for the Knights Saturday, and several Fellahs broke significant time barriers. Kian Flynn ’12 dipped below the 28-minute mark, running 27:56. Ben “Bro House Party” Parks ’11 broke 29 minutes, just weeks after breaking the half-hour mark for the first time.
Reid McMurry ’13 made his season debut, and had set a relatively modest goal of 35 minutes. Demonstrating no sense of his own fitness level, the native of Winchester, Massachusetts ran 29:28, a mere 5:32 faster than his pre-race ambition.
Famous Johnson ’12, competing in a Carleton singlet for the first time this season after forgetting his uniform for the Les Duke Invite, snuck under the Dominoes Guarantee of 30 minutes.
The Max Cross Country Course was especially kind to Jon Kittaka ‘13, who apparently did not realize it is not normal to drop 1:14 of one’s 8k in only three weeks. Soon, Kittaka will modify his arm swing as to avoid wasting a ton of energy, and his times will drop even further.
The Knights are back in action tomorrow morning with the Running of the Cows, their only home meet of the season. The action will begin at 10:45 am in the Upper Arb behind the Rec Center.
Seniors Charlie Gamble, Chris Marshall, Blake Hansen and Michael Sanders will run their last cross country home meet. This is your only chance to see the Carleton harriers this season, and your last chance to see superstar Gamble race cross country.