EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Mother Nature did her best to make life miserable for the Saint Mary's University cross country teams Friday night at the UW-Eau Claire Invitational. 

Fortunately for SMU coach Ward Berndt, Mother Nature's best wasn't good enough to faze the Cardinal runners, as both teams placed 13th in the 19-team fields.

“Overall, I was really happy with the way we performed,” said Berndt. “Our top runners weren't quite up to their best, but they still ran great races, and everyone else really picked things up from last weekend, too.”

UW-EC Men's Results UW-EC Women's Results

David Feather (Oak Creek, Wis.) led the way for the Cardinal men, clocking an eight-kilometer time of 27:24 to place 46th overall, while Rachel Folan (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) led the SMU women, stopping the clock in a 6K time of 25:19 to finish 68th overall.

Along with Feather's 27:24, the Cardinal men got a 27:55 from Peter Borash (Bowlus, Minn.), a 28:07 from Quentin Moore (Minneapolis, Minn.), a 28:14 from Benjamin Carlson (Rosemount, Minn.) and a 28:19 from Jake Traxler (Le Sueur, Minn.).

On the women's side, the Cardinals followed up Folan's 25:19 with a 25:33 from Ashley Acosta (Winnebago, Minn.), a 25:44 from Joanna Pace (Minocqua, Wis.), a 25:55 from Regina Quandt (Minneapolis, Minn.) and a 26:21 from Brittany Kuehn# (Sauk Rapids, Minn.)

“This was a good meet for us — the course was fast and I thought we handled the sub-par elements fairly well,” said Berndt. “It was good to see our younger runners step up and run more aggressively than they did last week (at the Roy Griak).

“We're getting there — we've still got four weeks to go (before the MIAC Championships), and, hopefully, we'll be right where we need to be by then.”