CEDARVILLE, Ohio – After a two-week hiatus from competition, the Notre Dame Cross Country squads returned to the course to compete at the Cedarville University Open hosted in Cedarville, Ohio. Out of six teams, the NDC women closed out in third place while the Men's team finished in fourth out of seven schools.
In the women's competition, NDC was able to land two runners in the Top-20 in the field of 62. Cherice May (Jr/Euclid, Ohio) finished in 13th place with a time of 20:06.54. Teammate Allie Rendlesham (Sr/Richmond Heights, Ohio) was less than a second behind May with a time of 20:07.47 and a fourteenth place finish in the 5K event.
On the men's side, Chad Dobson (Jr/Croswell, Mich.) was the leading Falcon finishing in 20th place and a time of 26:47.58, which sets a new program record for NDC.
"Overall, today marked a huge improvement for both programs," said first-year head coach David Bellar. "The men and women produced program-best team averages and this is a huge confidence boost for us."
Notre Dame takes another two-week break and will compete again on Oct. 10 when they travel to Delaware, Ohio for the All-Ohio Championship hosted by Ohio Wesleyan.
NEWS FROM THE NEST…
SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT: Chad Dobson's 20th place finish set the new Notre Dame program record for the cross country program. The previous record holder was teammate Nick Glavac (Jr/Mentor, Ohio). Glavac set the previous record back in 2006.
CHANGE-UP: The Cedarville Open marked the first time since Oct. 21, 2006 that Allie Rendlesham was not the top finisher for the Falcon runners. Back in 2006 Kirsten Liederbach earned a six place finish while Rendlesham earned seventh at the Tiffin Invitational. Similarly, Cherice May earned the NDC top spot over Rendlesham by only place, with the runners taking 13th and 14th place, respectively.