Cross country team finishes regular season

The IU cross country team played host to its last meet of the regular season at the IU Championships Cross Country course during the weekend.

The runners competing in this race were the runners who will not be competing in the Great Lakes Regionals and the races following.

IU Coach Ron Helmer said he was pleased with how the team raced on Saturday.

“The first thing you look at is you want people to compete hard, and I thought they did compete hard,” Helmer said. “I thought they stuck their nose in, and we had people running PR’s for this course.”

The two top runners for the men’s team were sophomore Owen Skeete and junior Nolan Fife.

Skeete crossed the line behind Fife, crossing the line in third place after 25 minutes and 13.9 seconds.

“It was nice to get out here and get it on our home course to finish off a good block of training that we had,” Fife said.

Junior Molly Winters finished first for the women’s team, crossing the line in sixth place in 18 minutes and 33 seconds.

Freshman Kelsey Kluesner also finished in the top 10 for the Hoosiers.

Kluesner finished in 10th place overall, crossing the line in 19 minutes and 21 seconds.

The remaining Hoosiers who did not compete Saturday will continue to finish the rest of the season.

However, the runners who competed Saturday ran their last race and will now focus on the indoor track season.

Fife’s main events for the indoor track season will be the mile and 3k races. The training for track starts immediately.

“We will bring the intensity down a bit for a couple of weeks just to freshen up a little bit,” Nolan said. “We will have time off of racing but will probably actually increase mileage a little bit in training.”

Dec. 13 will be the Hoosier Open for the indoor track season.

The NCAA Great Lakes Regional Race for the cross country team will be on Friday in Madison, Wis.

The time of the race has not yet been determined.

Follow cross country reporter Frank Bonner on Twitter @Frank_Bonner1.