Sievert Shines in Last Cross Country Meet Before Championship
by Madison Pitsch
The Bulldog cross country teams ran their last meet before the GPAC Conference Championships, on Saturday, Oct. 22 at Mount Mercy University’s Seminole Valley Stampede.
“We had a strong meet with two-thirds of our athletes running all time personal bests or season bests or within a few seconds of those,” coach Matt Beisel said.
The Bulldogs finished well among the 25 teams present, with the women taking fifth in the 5K and the men placing 12th in the 8K.
Junior Emily Sievert clocked a season best of 18:32, and secured fifth place out of 214 runners. Junior Shelbi Hackbart took 35th overall with a time of 19:36. Following Hackbart was sophomore Taylor Grove who took 37th with a time of 19:42. The fourth Bulldog in was Abby Protzman, who set a collegiate PR of 20:03. Rounding out the top five was freshman Rebekah Hinrichs with a 20:08.
Junior Pat Wortmann led the men’s 12th place campaign by running a 42-second PR of 26:19. Wortmann paced a 5:15 mile and placed 33rd. Sophomore Thomas Taylor followed behind with a PR of 26:50. Senior Chris Shelton and junior Kohlton Gabehart placed third and fourth in the team with times of 27:25 and 27:30, respectively. Fifth for the Bulldogs was sophomore Cameron Moes with a season best of 27:37.
The Bulldogs will be back in action two weeks from now to compete in the cross-country GPAC Conference Championships on Nov. 5 in Hastings.
“We have all the pieces of the puzzle, we just need to fit a few last pieces in place before then,” Beisel said.
