LaMere ties Cross Country school record for second time in his career

Ian LaMere, a 10,000 meter track national champion, won the Brissman/Lundeen Invitational at Augustana in a course record 24:02. The previous record was held by Michael Spain of North Central with his 2010 Midwest Regional win of 24:07. LaMere also tied UW-Platteville's Cross Country school record for the second time in his career." Ian has told me many times during workouts that he feels like he is in the best shape of his life, today's results confirm that" said Head Coach Tom Antczak. The 8,000 meter school record was originally set by Tyler Sigl in 2007 while winning the NCAA Midwest Regional Championships. LaMere first tied Sigl's record during last year's 5th place finish at NCAA Championships. LaMere said "It felt pretty good to win. I think it's pretty good that I'm running this well this early in the season and I'm looking forward to trying to break 24 minutes at Eau Claire next week."

The UW-Platteville men's team scored 131 points for a 4th place finish out of 48 teams. "They ran very well today and it validates our national and regional rankings but there is a lot of work to do before the end of the year so we can't get too comfortable" said Antczak. The 25th nationally ranked Pioneer men finished 4 points ahead of 22nd ranked Loras College. Division I University of Illinois won the meet with 65 points followed by Wartburg's 114 points and host Augustana's 126 points.

The pioneer men had a great showing with 13 of the 15 competing Pioneer men running personal bests. Following LaMere across the finish (Photo by Jim Wells) were Jason Winchel (25:08/13th), Zach Lee (25:49/43rd), Brian Rivers (25:50/44th), Dan LaCroix (25:51/45th), Mitchell Frager (26:11/70th), Walker Rynes (26:12, 73rd), Kyle Herbrand (26:34/107th), Logan Steinhoff (26:44/125th), Isaac Schuetz (26:48/130th), Nick Wagner (26:49/132nd), Mark Schmitz (26:52/136th), Chris Czech (27:04/161st), Benjamin Rhode (27:09/171st), and Benjamin Nemec (27:37/216th). A total of 599 individuals completed Friday's race.

On the women's side, four of the five competing Pioneer women ran personal bests in the race that included 582 finishers. The women's partial squad finished 38th out of 49 teams.  Johanna Meister led the pioneers with a time of 24:42 for the 6,000 meter race. Following Meister were Camille Felton (26:35, 309th), Kara Linzmeier (26:51, 337th), Kimberly Gutierrez (27:02/349th), and Anna O'Hern (30:08, 514th).

Most of the Pioneer women took the weekend off to rest after last week's win at UW-Whitewater. Both squads will be at full strength against nationally ranked competition next Friday at UW-Eau Claire.