Colfax, WI – The Indian Hills men's cross country team continued their historic start to their 2018 campaign at the Blugold Invitational hosted by Wisconsin Eau-Claire on Friday, September 28th. For the fourth meet in-a-row, IHCC was paced by sophomore All-American Marcus Graham, who finished 4th overall in a tight race, with a finishing time of 24 minutes and 52 seconds.Fellow sophomore Michael DeMeyer also notched a career day, crossing the line in 25 minutes and 58 seconds. Good enough for 35th place out of 438 athletes.
Coach Ewing said of Graham and DeMeyer, "Michael DeMeyer set a personal-best for the 3rd meet in a row and Marcus Graham was just one-second off of his. It's been a lot of fun to see their progression. We know what we are getting with them week-in-and-week-out, and their leadership has really set the tone for our program." Rounding out the top-7 for the Warriors included: freshman Zach Schocker in 28:07 (144th), freshman Drake Vanbaale in 28:46 (158th), freshman Seth Kilborn in 28:54 (161st), sophomore Clayton Grainger in 28:59 (165th), and freshman Conner Riley in 29:07 (169th). The team finished 18th overall of 29 teams.
Coach Ewing continued to say, "Friday was the first time this year we have raced on back-to-back weekends. In addition, nearly our whole team hit their highest mileage week ever. At this level, personal bests don't come every week, so the fact that we were able to run very close to our personal bests across the board was impressive given those factors. Our 3-7 guys are working together and trending in the right direction. Zach Schocker took another big step forward, as did Seth Kilborn and Conner Riley. Clayton is finally starting to get healthy, look fit, and is ready for a break-out race very soon."
The Warriors will be idle next weekend before competing at the Trent Smith Invitational hosted by North Iowa Area Community College on Friday, October 12th. Meet time is slated for 4:30 p.m. CST.