<st Saturday, teams from around Minnesota converged at Como Park in St. Paul for the MIAC Championships, affectionately known as “Konference.” On a beautiful, windy day, Hamline University took home first place, scoring an impressive 31 points, easily outdistancing second-place St. Olaf by 48 points. Four of the top six runners were from Hamline, and the Pipers’ Devin Monson took home the individual title with a time of 25:38.
The Knights finished sixth, matching their place last year. In another shout out to the fall of 2009, the Knights managed to amass the exact same number of points, with 167. Clearly the consistency of this team is to be admired. The most impressive thing about the Fellahs’ performance on Saturday had to be the small spread between its first five runners. Only 35 seconds separated the Carls’ first runner from their fifth.
Como Park, with its open views and picturesque bridge under which runners race several times, is very spectator-friendly. Sporting a wicked hill that runners must climb twice, the course is not so friendly to those racing. The race got underway without incident this year, unlike in 2009, and the Knights were fortunate not to have to share their starting box with a tree. The team generally ran smart, using the first few seconds to establish position before settling in to a conservative pace that kept the top five runners close together for over a mile until Bobby Davis ‘13 began his patented mid-race surge.
Davis led the way for the Carls, earning all-conference honorable mention by placing 22nd, and managing to dip just under 27 minutes. Marcus Huderle ’14 held off two Oles down the homestretch to finish 26th as the top freshman finisher in the MIAC. Guthrie Cunningham ’14 held his form all the way to the Finnish line to place third for the Knights in a time of 27:15. Meet officials will be forced to reseed the last 200 meters of the course after Aaron Hirsh ’13 set fire to it while blazing to a time of 27:32. Seeing red either from Hirsh’s flaming finish or possibly as a nightmarish prediction of Tuesday’s midterm elections, Colin Sinclair ’11 crossed the line next in 27:33.
Sophomores Josh Campbell and Chas Karch turned in solid performances for the Knights, scampering over the course in 27:49 and 28:14, respectively.
Matt Fitzgerald ’14 continued a strong freshman season by running 29:13, only six seconds off his personal best, while Ben Parks ’11 defeated jack-of-all-trades Ben Fraase of Concordia-Moorhead by one place. With no Oles in sight, Michael Knudson ’11 found another source of motivation to finish fast in surging teammate Ryan Lawrence ‘12. Knudson remarked afterwards that he hadn’t even seen any Oles during the race. Rumor has it that the Oles wore their new uniforms to evade Knudson. Famous Johnson ’12 ran 30:38 for his fastest time of the season.
With the conclusion of the conference meet, beardaj is officially over for the year, and the team is once again allowed to shave. Consequently, several team members report that they are once again on speaking terms with their girlfriends. For many, the last race of the season was the Karhu Shoe Race, which occurred yesterday evening and will be covered next week. The top seven Carls will travel to Waverly, Iowa in a week for the Midwest Regional meet.
-Colin Sinclair is a member of the men’s cross country team