William Penn Competes in Second Central Meet

Pella–The Statesmen men’s cross country team made its second trip of the fall west on I-163 as it battled in the Central Dutch Open Friday.

WPU finished fifth out of eight teams with 148 points, while host Central won the team crown with 35 points.

James Johnson of Simpson topped the 113-person field on the 8K course with a time of 25:57.3.

Andrew Miller (Jr., Le Claire, Iowa, Exercise Science) was WPU’s first runner across the finish line, taking 29th at 28:07.4, while Gavin Huff (Jr., Mascoutah, Ill., Mechanical Engineering) was right behind him in 30th at 28:12.2.

Brady McWhirter (Jr., Fairfield, Iowa, Sports Management), in 40th (28:37.4), and Carson Springer (Jr., Grimes, Iowa, Business Management), in 41st (28:39.3), also placed back-to-back, while Jordan Davis (Sr., Loomis, Calif., Political Science) completed the Statesmen scoring in 45th at 28:47.4.

Sutton Shively (So., Bloomfield, Iowa, Mechanical Engineering) led the remaining William Penn harriers as he was 49th in a time of 29:09.1.

“We came into today with a little different approach,” Head Coach Caleb Drake said. “The goal was for the first 5k to be more of a workout, and then the final 3k of the race to be a faster effort. I felt the men executed well, and it was fun to see a lot of WPU jerseys in a couple big groups working together. Even with the first part of the race being not quite “race pace”, we still had a few people run personal bests. Overall, it was a great effort by the men.”

Next Up: William Penn travels to Cedar Rapids next Saturday to compete in the Mount Mercy Seminole Stampede at 10:30 a.m.