Oct. 1, 2014 By Christopher Clapper
After a disappointing finish to last season, this year’s Warhawks men and women’s cross country team is out to prove itself, and it’s off to a great start.

The men placed second out of eight teams in their first meet of the season while the women finished first out of seven.

That fast start coming after a disappointing end to their season a year ago when injury and illness affected the team in the regional meet was a breath of fresh air.

“I think we ran a lot better today than we did a year ago on our home course,” head coach Jeff Miller said. “A lot of guys were running much better times, which was encouraging.”

Dawson Miller led the way for the men with a 25:49 8k, good for second place.

Other top finishers for the ’Hawks included junior Quinn Farley with a personal record of 26:43 and senior Matt Rudquist with a 26:49 finishing 9th and 13th respectively.

“The team overall improved greatly from last year; almost everybody dropped time,” Dawson  Miller said. “The top five especially, which are the scoring positions in cross country, ran a lot faster.”

The women as well showed great improvement with many of the runners posting personal record times all culminating in a first place finish.

Junior Amy Kahl posted a personal record time of 23:16 in the 6k to place second out of 80 runners and lead the group of ’Hawks runners.

Juniors Emily Kahl and Jaclyn Rowe and senior Amanda Brom ran as a group and finished 11th, 12th, and 13th.

“We ran pretty well as a team for this early in the season and we’re running really fast times already,” Emily Kahl said.

The teams continued to build on their fast start with strong finishes at Augustana College (IL) last weekend with the men finishing sixth of 39 teams and the women finishing 15th of 35 teams.

Out of 532 runners, Miller again led the ’Hawks and finished fifth while running the 17th fastest time in school history with a 25:02.

That effort combined with a 29th overall finish from Rudquist helped lead the ’Hawks to their finish.

Amy Kahl also paced the women’s team again with a 22:48 to finish 15th out of 498 runners.

It takes all top five runners to achieve a high team score however, and the rest of the runners continued their strong season as well.

Emily Kahl, Rowe, and Brom all ran sub 25 minute races to finish in the top 133 runners.

Both the men and women’s teams are counting on freshmen help this season as well.

“For it being their first 8k, they really went beyond expectations, especially it being their first meet of the season,” Dawson Miller said.

With the bitter taste of last season still hanging around, both teams continue to improve and build on the early momentum they have started this season.

If the first two meets are any indication, they should have no problem putting the past behind them.