Both the men’s and the women’s cross-country teams finished in the top half of the field this week at the ISU Pre-Nationals Invitational.

At the invitational the competitors are split into three different races — each with equally tough competition.

“We had in our race Northern Arizona and Oregon, the top two teams,” said senior Bret Imgrund.

The women’s team finished 18th out of 37 in the white race. In the race there were four of the nation’s top women’s teams.

“Prenats has all the best teams in the country in it, minus one or two maybe,” sophomore Rebeka Stowe said. “This was a really big meet to just kind of see where we line up with those other teams around the country.”

Finishing first for Kansas was senior Lauren Bonds in 17th out of 247 individuals. Her time was 21:03.70.

Junior Amanda Miller and Stowe finished in second and third for Kansas with times of 21:49.60 and 21:51.70. This was a career best for Stowe, cutting one minute off her time on this course when she ran it last year. Stowe said one of her goals for the season was to finish with Miller.

“I’ve just been working like all of our practices trying to stay as close to Kara and Amanda as I could,” she said of teammates Miller and sophomore Kara Windisch. “I’ve done a better job at that falling off of them as much at practices and I think that helped mentally.”

Senior Kellie Schneider finished in the top four for Kansas for the first time this season with a time of 22:22.00, a personal record. Finishing fifth for Kansas in 164th place overall was Windisch at 22:48.20. Freshman Tessa Turcotte and Kathleen Thompson finished fifth and sixth for Kansas, with times of 23:17.60 and 23:40.30.

The men’s team finished 17th out of 34 teams. Each runner finished at least thirty seconds faster than his time from last year — many of them finishing one minute faster.

“We had another year of training and we had a better idea of how to compete and how the race was going to go out,” Imgrund said.

Sophomore Donny Wasinger and Imgrund finished first and second for Kansas in 42nd and 59th place with times of 24:38.10 and 24:46.60. Both runners ran career-best times.

“The conditions were much sloppier than they were last year and we were happy to have Donny and I under 25,” Imgrund said.

Coming in third for Kansas was sophomore Kaleb Humphreys. Kaleb has slowly been finishing higher up in the Kansas team — finishing fifth, tenth, and fourth for Kansas in the previous meets.

Sophomore Austin Bussing and junior Nick Caprario finished next for Kansas with times of 25:06:10 and 25:31:90 in 123rd and 128th place overall.

Finishing up for the men were junior Dan Van Orsdel and sophomore Josh Baden.

— Edited by Abbey Strusz