The University of Toledo men’s and women’s cross country teams placed seven runners in the top 10 at Friday’s meet at the Mel Brodt Collegiate Opener in Bowling Green, Ohio. 

This was the second race for Toledo’s new head coach Linh Nguyen who had previously coached the last 12 seasons at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The length of the men’s race was identical to the Mid-American Conference Championship on Nov. 2, but 1,000 meters shorter than the women’s championship race.

The women’s team placed five runners in the top 10 and nine runners in the top 25. Junior runner Brooke Tullis posted a time of 17:34.69 in the 5K race giving her 3rd place in the meet and junior Megan Gaysunas finished with the same time giving her fourth place on a tiebreaker.

Gaysunas and junior Priscilla Timmons finish fifth and sixth in that respective order by less than a second a part. 

Juniors Liz Weiler and Megan Wright rounded off the top ten by finishing eighth and tenth in that order. 

“They gave us a good consistent performance and gave us a great look to see how they are doing with their training and I personally was pleased in what I saw,” said Nguyen. 

The women, who finished 28th as a team in last year’s NCAA Cross Country Championship, has high expectations again in this current season, including winning the MAC championship on Nov 2. 

“That’s our goal, we don’t want to go in there and shoot for 7th or 8th; we want to get to the point where we are winning the MAC and to do that we need to start moving up.” Nguyen said. 

The men’s team had two top-10 finishers and six top-25 finishers. 

Junior Jake Kasperski finished 4th with a time of 25:29.82 in the 8K race and his teammate Hillary Serem finished 7th with a time of 25:45.68. The two worked with each other the entire race until the last 1,000 meters or so when Kasperski made a break for the top 3.

“I was really happy with the weekend; it was the first race for many of the runners and I was really pleased on how they handled themselves during the race, competing at a high level this early in the season,” Nguyen said. 

Junior Adam Smercina finished 12th with a time of 26:06.15.  

The team’s overall score was not kept during Friday’s meet. 

Both teams are off until Oct. 5 when they will compete in Bethlehem, Pa., for the Paul Short Run.