Butler To Compete At The Indiana Intercollegiate Meet

Sept. 19, 2002

STATE MEET: Butler cross country coach Joe Franklin will send partial squads to compete in the men's and women's races at the 64th Annual Indiana Intercollegiate Meet in Bloomington, Ind., on Friday, Sept. 20. The meet, which features all of the university and college teams in Indiana, will be held on the IU Cross Country Course, beginning with an open race at 3:45 p.m. The women's 5K race is scheduled for 4:45 p.m., while the men's 8K race is slated for 5:10. Butler did no compete in the Indiana Intercollegiate meet last year.

BACK IN ACTION: The Bulldogs will be competing for the first time since Sept. 8, when they race at the Indiana Intercollegiate Meet hosted by Indiana University. Butler's last competition was at the non-scoring Great American Legends Meet held at Purdue University. Coach Joe Franklin didn't send his entire team to the meet at Purdue, but the Bulldogs did come away with two "Top 25" individual finishes in the men's 8K race. Senior Brad Bennett (Hoffman Estates, Ill.) led the way with a fourth place finish, while junior Lennon Wicks (Nowra, Australia) came in 13th. The top Butler finisher in the 6K women's race was freshman Maria Beitel, who placed 33rd. Franklin also plans to hold several of his runners out of the competition at the Indiana Intercollegiate Meet.

LEAGUE RECOGNITION: Senior Brad Bennett was named Horizon League Men's Cross Country "Athlete of the Week" following his performance at the Great American Legends Meet on Sept. 8. Bennett, running his first race of the fall season, placed fourth in the 8K men's race in 25:25. He was 12 seconds behind third place finisher Bill Jason of Illinois and 14 seconds ahead of fifth place finisher David Rae of Purdue. Nearly 100 runners from nine schools competed in the race.

NATIONAL RANKING: Butler's men's cross country has moved up one spot in the Mondo Men's NCAA-I Cross Country Poll. The Bulldogs, who were ranked 24th in the initial national poll, were 23rd in the Sept. 17 poll. Stanford has taken over the top spot in the "Top 25" rankings, followed by preseason favorite Colorado, Arkansas, Wisconsin and Northern Arizona. Notre Dame, ranked 20th, was the top team from Indiana, while the Indiana Hoosiers were ranked 24th.

BULLDOG BITS: Butler is ranked fourth in the Great Lakes Region men's cross country poll. Wisconsin tops the region, followed by Eastern Michigan and Michigan State. The regional poll has Indiana fifth and Notre Dame sixth...Freshman Maria Beitel (Powell, Ohio) has been the top Butler finisher in each of the Bulldogs' first two women's cross country meets this season. Beitel posted a time of 19:17:29 and finished seventh at the 5K Butler-Ball State meet and then recorded a time of 25:54 in the 6K race at Purdue.