Having run the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, Ind., 10 times before, freshman Sam Bird has seen bad races. Unfortunately for the Kansas Cross Country team, they got the bad end of the deal as it faced some of the toughest competition they’ve seen all year at Pre-Nationals this weekend.

The women’s team placed 23rd out of 41 teams and the men placed 36th out of 40 teams as the Jayhawks competed against top-ranked Division I schools across the country, including teams from the Big 12 Conference. Because of the number of schools entered in at Pre-Nationals, the competition was divided into two races: the blue race and the white race.

Washington took first place overall with many of its runners finishing in the top 10. KU finished in 23rd place, with the help of junior Lauren Bonds and sophomore Amanda Miller finishing in the top 100. Bonds finished first for the Jayhawks for the fourth consecutive meet and took 64th place with a time of 21:24. Miller finished second for the team and 94th overall with a time of 21:47.

Miller felt like the team could have had a better performance. “If we took the same thing that we did at Oklahoma State to Pre-Nationals, we could’ve been in a better position.” She said.

One factor in the team’s performance was the absence of freshman Laura Nightengale. Nightengale was dealing with a leg injury and stepped out of competing to make sure that she was ready for conference play.

With Nightengale out, it gave senior Megan James a chance to step up for the team. James finished in 146th place and third for the Jayhawks.

“Megan stepped up and helped us out a lot,” Miller said of James.

Another factor was that this was the first time the team competed in the seated race. For the past two years, the team competed in the open races. The blue race consisted of 280 runners, which was new to the freshman.

“It was different because I’m not used to that many people in one race,” freshman Rebeka Stowe said. “I wasn’t as mentally prepared for it as I should’ve been.”

Next was the men’s 8K. The men competed in the white race, where Stanford took first place overall. The Jayhawks took 36th place, with freshman Donny Wasinger being the frontrunner for the Jayhawks and taking 160th place overall with a time of 25:21. It’s the second race this season the freshman finished first for the team since the Bob Timmons Invitational back in August.

“I don’t think our race results reflect how well we perform,” he said.

Wasinger said the team needed to work on consistency.

“We need to get all the guys to run a good race at the same time.”

Wasinger said he consciously tried blocking out the hundreds of competitors in his field. “Seeing that many people ahead can wear on you mentally,” he said. “But I tried to remain calm and collective and run my own race.”

Some of the runners thought Wasinger ran a smart race. “Donny ran the smartest time,” junior Isaiah Shirlen said. “He was our seventh man through the first 2K. By the end of the race he was our number one man by 15 seconds.”

Shirlen said he went out too strong and it affected him throughout the race.

“I went though the first mile at 4:41, which you shouldn’t do. I pretty much drug along the rest of the way.”

— — Edited by Arthur Hur