Cross country packing together

On Saturday, Northwestern’s cross country teams ran at the Nike Heartland Invitational. The women’s team placed third overall, while the men’s team landed fifth.
Head coach Nate Wolf was pleased with both performances. “We put five guys in front of last year’s top time. They ran really well, three minutes faster overall on this course. It was just a tougher day,” he said.
Heading up the men’s team was freshman Logan Hovland. Hovland scored 19th overall, with a time of 27:30. He was closely followed by junior Jesse Baldwin, who finished 24th with a time of 28:00.
“Our goal as a men’s team is to be within 30-45 seconds as a pack. I think [Logan and Jesse] can help us make that happen,” Wolf said.
The women’s team was led by senior Teresa Kerkvliet. Kirkvliet placed eighth out of 78 runners at the meet and was followed by junior Amy Van Skike.
“Last weekend was a little bit of a tougher race for all of us. We are just at that point in the training where we are all kind of sore and tired,” said Van Skike. “Last year we had Charity [Miles, fifth fastest runner in the GPAC,] and we can definitely feel the holes from her leaving.”
Wolf, however, thinks the Raiders will be just fine. “Miles had led the pack for the past few years. The women have started out well and will do well as the year goes on. We have a good pack in the top seven,” Wolf said.