The men’s and women’s cross country teams traveled to South Bend, Indiana Friday to compete at the Notre Dame Invitational. The women placed second, while the men finished 11th.

On the women’s side, the team was led by an eighth-place finish from senior Erika Kemp. Immediately following Kemp was the duo of redshirt sophomore Rachel Koon and redshirt senior Megan Moye, placing 27th and 31st, respectively.

Redshirt junior Alyssa Rudawsky and true freshman Elly Henes rounded out team scoring for the Pack, finishing 39th and 44th, respectively.

The dense field featured nearly two dozen teams. Numerous highly ranked opponents were present; including Providence College who is ranked No. 1 in the most recent USTFCCCA National Cross Country rankings.

Despite finishing in the same spot as last season, second place this year is a greater feat.

“It was a really good showing,” Kemp said. “We got second last year, but this year means a lot more because the field was a lot deeper. We had more opponents to contend with and the team did really well in a high pressure situation.”

Maximizing the course layout enabled the Pack to produce quick times and solid performances.

“It’s a really nice course to open up the season on,” redshirt senior Kaitlyn Kramer said. “It’s not very hilly, it’s pretty open and the field usually runs pretty fast. It gets you used to running in a really crowded fast scenario.”

Additionally, a strategic and patient approach further propelled the team’s success.

“Going into it, we wanted to make sure we didn’t expend too much energy in the first mile of the race,” Kramer said. “[We didn’t want to fight] people for a position when [we] can move up a lot in the second half. We started pretty relaxed and moved up as the race went on.”

Ultimately, the meet serves as a major confidence booster for the women’s side.

“It’s definitely exciting to come to Notre Dame,” Kemp said. “I personally placed the same as last year but ran 10 seconds faster which is great to see. Overall, [most] of the girls ran PR’s, so it’s nice to see how fit everyone is and how much further we can go.”

Between now and next meet, the team looks to tailor its training.

“Between now and Wisconsin, we’re really going to pick up our training a little bit,” Kramer said. “We haven’t really done a lot of race paced stuff in practice so we’re going to do that to fine tune ourselves….Wisconsin is also fairly flat, fast and crowded….[Notre Dame] is a good experience to take to the bigger version at Wisconsin.”

On the men’s side, the team was led by a stellar individual performance by redshirt senior Sam Parsons. The Newark, Delaware native placed second overall.

The trio of redshirt freshman Ben Barrett, redshirt senior Aubrey Myjer, and redshirt junior Sebastian Hanson crossed the line as a pack, separated by less than two seconds en route to  64th, 66th and 67th-place finishes, respectively. Redshirt sophomore Patrick Sheehan completed the Pack’s top five runners with a 73rd-place finish.

“It feels good,” Parsons said. “I felt smooth and I finished the race really hard. I have the mindset now that every race I go into I have the intent to win. I want to maintain that confidence of knowing that I can run with the best and [am] meant to be up there.”

Parsons credits his momentum from last spring’s track season for his immediate success this cross country season.

“This is the first year I was able to take a successful spring track season and carry that over [to the fall],” Parsons said. “Before then, I’ve always been rehabbing some sort of injury during the summer and then trying to get into shape right before the season starts. This year, I kept my fitness from the track season and now I’m carrying it over.”

While the course is very flat, it presented some unique challenges.

“Luckily the rain held off,” Parsons said. “It’s very flat, but has a lot of tight turns and narrows pretty quickly; that led to a poor start from our team today. [While that was upsetting], we’re going to learn from it and move forward.”

The Wolfpack looks to bounce back and gather momentum to carry over to the ACC conference meet.

“We’re going to get out a lot harder and show what kind of team this really is,” Parsons said. “We’re going to take some good vibes after the Wisconsin race into ACC’s.”

Next, both the men’s and women’s teams will travel to Madison, Wisconsin to take part in the prestigious Wisconsin Invitational on Oct. 14.