McCandless leads cross country to second place

While most people can’t stand the rain, it seems Maureen McCandless doesn’t mind it…. While most people can’t stand the rain, it seems Maureen McCandless doesn’t mind it.

Running in a steady downpour, McCandless won the women’s portion of the Duquesne Invitational Friday, helping the Pitt women’s cross country team to a second place finish.

Despite finishing just five points shy of first place, coach Waddie Freeman was not completely satisfied with the team’s results.

“The meet was a good meet,” Freeman said. “But it wasn’t what we expected and what we had hoped for.”

Sophomore McCandless, who finished second at the Duquesne Quad Meet three weeks ago, cut almost 30 seconds off her time, finishing with a time of 18 minutes and one second.

Rachel Rothe continued her strong start to the season, coming in with a time of 18:53, which was good enough for sixth.

“Maureen ran excellent in the rain,” Freeman said. “I’m happy with [Rachel], especially with the conditions. The rest of the team just didn’t give any support.”

Dawn Hilgert finished third on the Panthers and 10th overall, with a time of 19:34.

For the second meet in a row, two freshmen finished fourth and fifth for the women, which pleased Freeman.

“They are definitely going to be better, the more races the better they get as the season goes on,” he said about Kelly O’Connell and Nicole Angstadt, who finished fourth and fifth respectively. “But we do have to work on the fourth and fifth runners moving up. They’re freshmen and they’re learning.”

O’Connell finished 16th with a time of 19:40 and Angstadt came in at 19:51, which was good enough for 21st place.

The Panthers were again without Amanda Schmidt and Lauren Schaffer, two of their top runners.

Schmidt’s eligibility is still up in the air, while Schaffer is out for the year with a high hamstring injury.

“It’s basically a deep bruise,” Freeman said. “It’s a difficult area to treat and get to. We decided the best treatment was complete rest which we’re implementing right now.”

For the men, Dan Hull led the way for the Panthers, finishing fifth. Despite leading for most of the race, Hull couldn’t hold on and finished just three seconds out of second place with a time of 27:00.

Jeryl Wilborn had another strong race, finishing 13th overall with a time of 27:29. Nick Westerman was the third Panther to finish, coming in 16th with a time of 27:36.

Rounding out the top five for the men were Mike Diano, who finished 22nd with a time of 28:07, and Andrew Zang, who came in with a time of 30:15 for 38th place.

“Jeryl had a good race, but Mike Diano caught a cramp and tried to run through it,” Freeman said. “There are no excuses for it with the weather because everyone had to run in it.”

Tomorrow, the Panthers will travel to South Bend, Ind., to compete in the Notre Dame Invitational.

“We will have a better performance this week and we should be sharp with back-to-back meets,” Freeman said. “Notre Dame is going to bring out the best.”