Posted: Sep 16, 2023

Rocky Road

September 16, 2023 | by Ashley Nerat

STORY

WHITEWATER, Wis. -- Maranatha faced some good competition at the Tom Hoffman Invitational this morning. Neither the men nor the women were able to place very high on the day, despite multiple time improvements from their first race earlier this month.

The men finished in seventh place out of the eight competing teams, compiling a score of 210 points. In his first race of the season, freshman David Cheloudtchenko finished first for Maranatha, coming in 77th overall Running the 8K in a time of 31:19, he was qualified for the NCCAA National Championship along with Shem Abdnour who finished with a time of 33:26. Thanks to Cheloudtchenko and Abdnour's times, the Maranatha men were able to claim their team ticket to nationals with an overall time of 2:48:53.

Blake Rumford, Jonathan Knight, and Jeremiah Markle all improved their times by over a minute, since their last race on September 9th.

The host of the race, UW-Whitewater, finished first overall with an impressive 15 pts. Their runners claimed spots one through five in the race, with Justin Krause coming in first (26:14).

For the girls, it wasn't the best race, but having been only the second race of the season, there are a lot of opportunities for improvement. They finished in last place with a total of 139 points. Natalie Shetter was today's leader for Maranatha, finishing 40th with a time of 28:52.

UW-Whitewater once again took the gold, with a total of 25 points and five of their racers finishing in the top ten. Edgewood's Ally Verbauwhede took first on the day, finishing with a time of 23:22.

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