Cross Country Teams Ready to Start Season

By Taylor Hauge

School has started and so has the Dakota State University Cross Country teams. The teams started last Saturday and are very excited to start the season. There are a total of 17 runners on this year’s Trojans Cross Country team. Coach Buzz Stevenson will coach those runners and will be assisted by former DSU runner and All-American Anthony Drealan.

“We have some good experience on the team but we are very young too,” Coach Drealan said.

The experience on the women’s side will come from their four returners: Seniors Claire Beck and Summer Bronson, and Junior Stephanie Uher, and Sophomore Amber Wiebenga. The new faces for the Lady Trojans are Anastasia Asimakopoulos, Tara Ronke, and Kayla Sveen.

The five veterans on the men’s cross country team are: Seniors Michael Hoffman, Andy Coy, Nic Penning, Andy Quenzer, and sophomore Thomas Ricket. The new guys on the team include transfer student Jacob Hemenway and freshmen Taylor Hauge, Steve Selchert, Jared Sutton, and Jared Truman.

According to Coach Drealan, “The biggest thing will be keeping our athletes busy and developing our younger athletes so that the team is stronger down the road. We also want to keep the team healthy and motivated so that we are fast during the track season.”

One of the goals for the team is to A.I.I. meet and to place as high as they can. “We have some runner that can get into the National meet so we want to get that done as well,” Coach Drealan commented.

The Trojan teams will start off their season with Herb Blakley Invitational, which is on September 15th at the Madison Golf Course. The women’s race will begin at 10:30 a.m. and the men will follow at 11:15 a.m. Then next meets are: Dakota Wesleyan Invitational (women), Roy Griak Invitational (men), Blair Cliff Invitational, Mount Marty Invitational, the A.I.I. Invitational, and finishing off for the qualifiers will be the NAIA Cross Country National Championships.

Featured photo provided by DSU Athletics