RICHMOND, Ky. ? The Kentucky men?s and women?s cross country teams opened the season in impressive fashion at the Eastern Kentucky Invitational Friday. The men?s squad posted better results than Marshall but fell to Eastern Kentucky while the UK women swept both opponents at the EKU Woodchip Trail in Richmond, Ky.
?I think this meet gave us an opportunity to look at our athletes in a meet situation,? said John Mortimer, first-year assistant coach for distance/cross country. ?It solidified that we have a pretty good women?s team. They are a tight group of girls and it certainly bodes well for the rest of the season.?
Junior transfer Jessica Ortman (11:05) led the women?s squad with her second- place finish followed immediately by Lavera Morris (11:05) who finished one-half second behind Ortman. Freshman Leah Ryan (11:12) placed fifth while juniors Taylor Miller (11:12) and Andrea Halasek (11:15) followed right behind at sixth and seventh, respectively.
The top five Wildcats on the women?s side finished in the first seven runners to cross the finish line. The UK quintuplet all ran faster than the top finisher for the Cats at last year?s meet, with only a span of ten seconds separating one from five on the 2-mile course.
Sophomore Lindsey Petri (11:35) finished the scoring for the Cats in tenth place. Three fellow Wildcats finished right behind Petri: freshman Katherine Peterson (11:38 ? 11th), sophomore Claire Laverty (11:44 ? 12th) and junior Jenna Ortman (11:45 ? 13th). The UK women defeated Eastern Kentucky 23-34 and Marshall 15-50.
?On the men?s side, we saw what some hard work and consistency does for you,? said Mortimer. ?Looking down the roster you see a good group of freshmen. We are starting to see what their rank-order might be.?
Junior Bruce Hordusky led the UK men, who ran two separate 2-mile races, finishing third overall with a combined 4-mile time of (19:17), shattering his mark at last year?s event by 25 seconds. A trio of seniors finished behind Hordusky in the standings: Andre Silva (19:28 ? 5th), John Thompson (19:31 ? 6th) and Chris Long (19:34 ? 8th).
Freshmen rounded out the scoring for the Cats. Rookie Eric Schmidt (19:46) crossed the line in 10th just ahead of classmates Adam Henken (19:50) and Matt Wagner (19:50) who tied for 12th in their first collegiate race. The UK men defeated Marshall 15-50 while Eastern Kentucky outpaced the Wildcats 23-32.
?Bruce Hordusky made a huge improvement over last year finishing third overall as our number-one guy,? said Mortimer. ?Certainly Eric Schmidt and Adam Henken being contributors to our scoring team is going to be something that will be really important for us. We need those guys to step up and I think we are starting to see that.?
Kentucky next travels to Bowling Green Ky., on Saturday Sept. 15 to run in the Old Timer?s Classic hosted by Western Kentucky University.
