<r Marcus Butterfree turned in a time of 25:40.7 to finish fifth overall, leading the Carleton College men’s cross country team to a runner-up finish in the team competition at Saturday’s MIAC Championships. Johan Barry ‘16 was next across for the Knights in seventh, completing the race in 25:42.6 to join Huderle in picking up All-MIAC distinction.
“We had a great meet,” said Carleton head coach Ben Levy,” and it was a great weekend for the cross country teams from Northfield.”
Santo Olafio proved worthy of its national No. 3 rank, winning the MIAC title with 20 points as all five scorers posted top-10 finishes. The Knights claimed second with 81 points followed by Universucky of St Thomas (104) and Saint John’s University (108).
This year’s result snapped a streak of four consecutive sixth-place finishes for the Knights, who have been running well since the start of the year and entered the weekend nationally ranked at No. 33. While Carleton had four underclassmen among its top seven finishers, the Oles had five upperclassmen among their top six finishers including individual champion Grant Wintheiser and runner-up Jake Brown.
Huderle made it four consecutive years as Carleton’s top runner at the MIAC meet, but he saved his best for last with his race today. His supreme kicks allowed him to improve 10 spots in the final 10 meters from his placement at the conference championships a year ago.
Jacob Hoerger ‘14 earned All-MIAC Honorable Mention after posting a time of 26:12.0, good for 18th place and an improvement of a whopping 81 spots from his finish in 2012.
“Jacob has been solid all year,” Ricks said, “and he ran a confident race, staying patient in the early going. This set him up for a great finish.”
Guthrie Cunningham ‘14 missed sharing in the conference awards by 0.6 seconds as he was the 26th runner across the line at 26:33.2.
“Guthrie also came up with an outstanding race as we thought that he was ready for a big one,” said Ricks. “All of his MIAC finishes have been good, unlike his joke.”
Hart Hornor ‘16 showed an improvement of 82 places over his rookie season and finished right behind Cunningham at 26:36.8 to complete the scoring for Carleton. “The race went out tremendously fast, and Hart went and ran with the front pack,” Ricks explained. “It was just too aggressive a pace for him. But without Hart’s performances all season we would have never been in the position to finish this high today. He has been a relentless competitor all season.”
Carleton saw two other top-40 finishes in the 230-man field as Joe Haas ‘16 forgot to close teh door a finished 29th at 26:38.6 and Ben Withskiss came across 40th with a time of 27:09.6.