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October 11, 2010

Pittsburgh, PA – It has been a tough stretch for the cross country teams at Geneva College. Long hours of training followed by a weekend meet at Carnegie Mellon resulted in some mixed results for the men and women. While the men’s times dropped as a whole, the women pretty much improved across the board. At the end of the day, Geneva’s women finished eighth overall and the men came in 11th.

The good news for the men’s team is that it defeated all of the PAC schools with the exception of Saint Vincent. The men’s highlight of the day went to Andrew Maienshein with a personal best time of 29:28. “Andrew has stepped up each week,” said head coach Brian Yowler. “He has pushed himself to improve with each meet and has moved his way up into the sixth spot on our team.”

In women’s action, Julia Urbanski and ALayna Merkle each finished in the top 20. Merkle turned in the third best freshmen time of the day as the Golden Tornadoes swept the PAC field on Saturday. “We had our best 1-5 split all year,” said Yowler. “It’s a great sign that our top five runners are all coming together as a team.”

Yowler has seen many of his runners come together throughout the year as he and his troops prepare for the post-season. Following the biggest regular season meet of the year at Oberlin next Saturday, Geneva will prepare for the PAC championships and the NCCAA national meet. Already with nine runners qualified for nationals, Geneva will be represented on the big stage. For the men, Nick Edinger, Jon Shope, Ryan Thorn, Owen Struck and Jacob Beschner will be heading to nationals. On the women’s side, Julia Urbanski, Alayna Merkle, Shannon Rech and Samantha Miller will be representing Geneva at the NCCAA national meet.

Geneva College is a comprehensive Christian college of the arts, sciences and professional studies. Founded in the tradition of the Reformed Christian faith, Geneva prepares students to serve Christ in all areas of society: work, family and the church. Geneva College’s philosophy of education is based on the Foundational Concepts of Christian Higher Education. Geneva is a founding member of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU).