Despite having three of her teammates out with injuries, junior Lauren Shaffer led the Pitt… Despite having three of her teammates out with injuries, junior Lauren Shaffer led the Pitt women’s cross country team through a muddy course to a second-place finish in the Duquesne Invitational on Friday.

“We’re missing [runners] one, three and five,” coach Waddie Freeman said at the onset of the race. “But sometimes that happens. You’ve got to step it up.”

Shaffer finished first in the 5-kilometer race, with a time of 18 minutes, 22 seconds.

In the men’s race, Pitt captured third place out of eight teams in its last meet before the Big East Championships, a 5-mile course through Schenley Park.

Pitt women finish second out of eight teams

At the 2K marker, Pitt held strong positions.

“One through four are solid,” Freeman said. “[But] No. 5, [Katelyn Fleishman], is a little shaky.”

Fleishman said that she felt encouraged to step up because of the absence of her team’s injured runners but had trouble keeping her footing on the wet ground. She fell on the course’s first hill.

Most noticeably omitted from the race was junior Maureen McCandless, who, in her sophomore season, became the first Panther to ever qualify for the NCAA Championships.

McCandless, out with a knee injury, said that she will be able to run in the Big East Championships on Oct. 31.

Sophomore Abby Zaylor, who missed the race with an injury to the side of her foot, said that she would also be ready to run in the tournament.

In the race, Nicola Angstadt moved ahead of fellow Panther, senior Rachel Rothe, with a strong finish to take sixth place overall and second for Pitt.

“This is by far Nikki’s [Angstadt] best race,” Freeman said as Angstadt sped around the final turn in a field full of fall’s soaked foliage.

With a final score of 63, the women’s team finished 32 points behind the hosting Duquesne, but 11 points ahead of their next closest competitor, Lehigh.

Pitt men finish third of eight teams

“I like our freshmens’ strategy,” Freeman said at the beginning of the race. “They’re getting right to the top.”

For the fourth straight race, Pitt had more freshmen than upperclassmen in its scoring top five.

“This group of freshmen, they’ve got a lot of heart,” Freeman said.

Senior Mike Diano placed fourth among the Panthers and 16th overall. Surrounding him on Pitt’s scorecard were four freshmen: Eric Fleming, fifth overall; Andy Tomaswick, eighth; Jesse Mang, 13th; and Stephen Gonzalez, 20th.

The Panthers held top spots early on, but standout runners from other schools sprung out late in the race.

“The guy from Duquesne [Ryan Bender] made a move. I expected that,” Freeman said. “He tried to break them on the hills.”

Fleming and Tomaswick cooperated to stem the tide of surging runners and grab the top-ten finishes.

“The Duquesne and Lehigh guys made a move on us,” Fleming said. “[But] we worked together to pull it back. We were talking. The hills weren’t that tough.”

Pitt finished with 62 points, behind Lehigh and Duquesne, who took first and second places respectively.

After the meet, Fleming echoed a comment made earlier in the season by his teammate Michael Long.

On Sept. 6, Long said, “On any given day, anyone can pretty much do anything. Today just happened to be my day,” after finishing first among the Panthers at the Duquesne Duals Invitational.

“Today was just my day,” Fleming said.

“Our team’s going to make a big showing [at the Big East Championships] and surprise a lot of people. This is just the beginning of the season,” he said.