Central races to men’s cross country title at Grinnell

GRINNELL—Packing five runners in the top-10, the Central College men’s cross country team had a dominant day in winning the nine-team Les Duke Invitational Saturday.

The Dutch finished with 29 points, comfortably outdistancing Simpson College, which had 60. Host Grinnell College had 82.

In the season’s first 8,000-meter race, Caleb Silver (5th-year, Conrad, BCLUW HS) was third in 25:51.73. Noah Jorgenson (senior, Sidney) took fourth in 26:03.47, Adam Sylvia (5th-year, Rochester, Mass., Old Rochester HS) was fifth at 26:14.19, freshman William Wadsley (Gilbert) was seventh in 26:30.09 and freshman Donovan Card (Norwalk) was seventh in 26:34.10. Central’s other two varsity finishers were Randy Jimenez (junior, Liberty Center, Southeast Warren HS) in 18th at 27:02.98 and Derek Webster (junior, Norwalk) in 20th in 27:11.47.

“I think our theme of the week was patience and I really felt like both of our squads (men’s and women’s) really did a great job of being patient early in the race and let the race come to them,” coach Joe Dunham said. “Our freshman ran really smart and I was proud of them.”

Dunham was impressed with his first-year runners’ maturity in their first 8,000-meter race.

“They ran together in a pack,” he said. “I thought William Wadsley had a great race and Donovan Card had a great race as well.

“I also thought Randy Jimenez ran very well.”

It was a competitive field.

“Simpson is a really good team,” Dunham said. “They put together a great race. So I was pleased with could compete well against them.”

Central is off until the Roy Griak Invitational Sept. 22 at 10 a.m., hosted by the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. That leaves plenty of training time in the interim.

“We have a nice body of work in front of us with our training and we’re looking forward to getting that work done,” Dunham said.

Central was sixth in a 29-team field at Minneapolis last year.