Ronan Khalsa, Luqman Lundy, Cole Bredahl

On a hot Friday evening at Detweiller Park, the Braves hosted the Bradley Intercollegiate as the men cruised to a near perfect victory and the women were narrowly defeated to take second place.

The meet was the first race of the season for Bradley’s top runners and served as a benchmark of where the team’s fitness is at after a summer of training.

The men won in dominating fashion, just missing a perfect cross country score of 15 by one. The Braves finished in the first four positions and just allowed Alexander Bruno of Valparaiso to take fifth.

Redshirt junior Will Anderson won the race, as he crossed the line with redshirt senior Michael Ward and redshirt junior Luke Hoffert. Anderson, Ward and Hoffert all finished the eight-kilometer race in 24:59.

Head coach Darren Gauson said he was proud of the way his team performed and hopes that it is the first of many wins for the men this fall.

“The men were pretty dominant and are a top 40 team nationally,” Gauson said. “We wanted to get out 4:40 for the first mile for Michael [Ward] and then get our group together. If Luke [Hoffert] and Will [Anderson] are doing well, and we get Haran [Dunderdale] a little bit closer to where he needs to be and Jake Hoffert healthy we are in good shape.”

Anderson, Ward and Hoffert led the pack the entire race with Dunderdale making a late push to finish fourth. The men ran comfortably according to eventual champion Will Anderson.

“[Michael] Ward told me to take this one and finish the deal,” Anderson said. “At the future races he and Jake Hoffert are going to get out hot and stay hot with the top group of guys. Today, we were completely controlled together and finished strong.

Gauson said he understands it is still early in the season and wanted the team to run comfortably at the first home and conserve energy for future meets.

“We did not want to go max out on the first one,” Gauson said. “We kept it a real hard and solid effort. The team ran fast. We had a lot of people run fast. We were in control [on the men’s side].”

In the women’s three-mile race, redshirt junior Gabby Juarez won with a time of 17:02. Juarez was joined by junior Sam Lechowicz in 5th, freshman Ayah Aldadah in 7th, redshirt junior Abby Jockisch in 8th, senior Niamh Markham in 9th, redshirt senior Kathryn Adelman in 11th and redshirt freshman Emma Planck in 12th.

Gauson was admittedly irritated that the University of Northern Iowa, the runner-up to Bradley last year in the Missouri Valley Conference meet, edged out the Bradley women by two points but saw the meet as a positive for the program.

“We always want to come out and win,” Gauson said. “When it really counts at regionals, we will be in top shape. We want to be a top-five [or] six team in the region. We will do a lot of strength endurance type stuff so we will be sharper.”

Juarez echoed her coach and knows that the women she trains with each day will come out stronger next meet. Running in her first race since sophomore year, she was excited to kick off her season on a high note.

“Today was a wake up call especially since the goal is to win conference but there is room for improvement,” Juarez said. “We went into the race knowing it would be a team effort and having them right there next to me showed that we can work together through it.”

Gauson believes that the losing early in the season will help the women practice harder and become even more dedicated to their sport.

“I told them that losing [a meet] early will give them a little more vigor and determination at practice, which is a good thing,” Gauson said. “I think you learn a lot more from losing than winning meet

s all the time. They probably learned more today than our men did.”

The Braves will be back in action when they head to Madison, Wisconsin to compete in the 10th annual Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational on Sept. 28. The women will run a 6K at 12:20 p.m. followed by the men’s 8K at 1 p.m. This meet serves as an opportunity for Bradley to get a look at the course where the NCAA national meet will be held.

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