Both the men’s and women’s cross country teams received boosts in the past week.
Coach Al Seither announced that Leon Perniciaro, communications freshmen, is joining the men’s team as soon as his eligibility checks out. With the addition of Perniciaro, the team will have the required five runners to qualify as a team at the conference championships on Oct. 25.
The women won the Spring Hill tournament on Saturday as the team placed five runners in the top six.
“Winning the meet gives us a lot of confidence,” Seither said. “We defeated teams in our conference. This tells us that we can do well in the conference meet.”
Sociology junior Natalie Sargent won the meet with a time of 20:59.7 on the 5,000-meter course.
Communications sophomore Natalie Miller, who is in her first year of running, finished in second place in 21:01.0.
Sara Miles St. Clair, general studies sophomore, finished fourth with a time of 21.24.3; psychology sophomore Kim Kujanek (21:29.3) and elementary education junior Jean Cassandra (21:34.2) came in fifth and sixth, respectively.
Miller is “kind of the surprise of our team,” Seither said. “It’s her first year running. She started from the bottom, and she’s working her way up.”
Miller, who played on the basketball team last year, said the adjustment to cross country was not easy.
“I’ve been improving each week, but I can’t run the mileage the other girls are running,” she said. “They run in the morning and at night. Right now, I’m just running at night.”
“It’s strange to be running and not have referees or to have a ball on the court. It’s also different to be competing outside. Plus, the shorts are a lot shorter.”
Seither said he knew Miller had the potential to contribute to the team, because she “looked like a pretty good athlete.”
For the men, history senior Mike Gulotta finished third in the Spring Hill men’s competition with a 27:38.3 time on the 8,000 meter course; Gulotta came in 13th at the LSU meet two weeks ago.
“Mike has been running well,” Seither said. “He’s running against strong competition from (the University of) Mobile. They have four really strong runners.”
“It didn’t appear like he raced at Spring Hill, and I’m sure he would tell you the same thing. But he’ll see those guys in conference, and then he’ll do some serious racing. If they beat him, they’re going to earn it.”
Seither said that two freshmen have come on strong for the Wolfpack, with running times comparable to Gulotta’s when he was a freshman.
General business freshmen Matt Cagigal finished in sixth place with a time of 28:53.5, while Richard Bouckaert, history freshmen, came in eighth with a time of 29:27.1.
Andrew Fell, international business junior, finished 16th in 30:43.3.
The men also appear to have a chance to win conference.
Mobile will be the team to beat and has performed better than the ‘Pack has, but Loyola may be the top challenger.
Gulotta and Cagigal finished ahead of Eric Speer, Xavier’s top runner. Bouckaert finished less than a second behind Speer.
Fell was two seconds behind Xavier’s fourth runner. He beat both Xavier’s and Mobile’s fifth runners.
