UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – For the seventh straight season, the Penn State women's cross country program captured the team title at the annual Harry Groves Spiked Shoe Invitational. Along with the Nittany Lion women winning the team title, the Blue & White won individual titles in both races on Friday afternoon at the Blue-White Golf Course.
"It is always exciting to host at home," head coach John Gondak said. "We had some great teams travel in today to run at the Blue-White Golf Course. We are always thrilled to host, I think our kids really enjoy running on this course and the results today really showed it."
In the team standings in the women's race, the No. 12 Nittany Lions finished first with a score of 32 points followed by No. 22 Syracuse (55) and No. 25 Georgetown (73). On the men's side, No. 10 Syracuse combined for a score of 21 points for the team title with Penn State taking second (57) and St. Joseph's rounding out the top-three with 89 points.
"The women tallied a win over a very tough Syracuse team," Gondak said. "Syracuse ran very well and I was pleased with how our women responded to that challenge, particularly our five-six-seven runners. They really stepped up and had some great races."
Individually in the women's 6k, freshman Julia Paternain (Cambridge, England) picked up her second victory of the year with a time of 20:50, while senior Elizabeth Chikotas (Hellertown, Pa.) clocked in six seconds later to place second. Kathryn Munks (Chester, N.Y.) and Alison Willingmyre (Wernersville, Pa.) both completed the course in 21:07 to finish sixth and seventh, respectively. Jordan Williams (Sharon, Pa.) rounded out the scoring for Penn State with her 16th-place finish (21:47).
Paternain extends Penn State's streak of individual titles on the women's side at the Spiked Shoe Invite to four, and she is the fifth Nittany Lion to win the meet in the past six years.
"On the men's side, Colin Abert recording the win, along with our two through five running as a pack to help us secure a second-place finish," Gondak said. "It was a really great day for Penn State cross country."
For the second straight year, Colin Abert (Easton, Pa.) broke the tape in the 5.2-mile course, finishing with a time of 25:25. Owen Wing (State College, Pa.) rounded out the top-10 in the standings with his time of 26:23. Along with Abert and Wing, Billy McDevitt (Newtown Square, Pa.) took 13th (26:26), Alex Tomasko (Mechanicsburg, Pa.) finished 15th (26:28), and John McGowan (Northport, N.Y.) placed 18th (26:35).
With Abert's title on Friday, he becomes the first Nittany Lion to win the Spiked Shoe Invite in back-to-back years on the men's side since Eric Carter won three straight titles from 1985-87. Penn State has won an individual title on the men's side in four of the past six seasons.
The Nittany Lions will take a few weeks off from competition before heading to Madison, Wisconsin, for the Nuttycombe Invitational on Friday, Sept. 28. The meet is slated for a noon (EDT) start at the Zimmer Championship Course.
"We built in these three weeks to build a really solid training block, because once you get to October you start racing every other weekend and it becomes a bit of a challenge to do some high quality workouts," Gondak said. "These next few weeks will be fun to get in some work and help prepare us for championship time."