By: Chris Behler

The men’s and women’s cross country teams had high expectations for the 32nd annual Queen City Invitational this past weekend.

The teams exceeded their goals at the meet as the Xavier women, led by senior individual titlist Abby Fischer, took first place as a team. The men also placed sixth on the day collectively and fourth amid the Division I schools.

While Abby Fischer finished first with a time of 17:32.16, her sister Clare was only 12 seconds behind, finishing third in 17:44.79.

Additionally, finishing fourth and fifth for the women were junior Audrey Ramos and sophomore Sarah Mazzei with times of 17:47.12 and 17:48.87, respectively.

“The women’s team executed the plan perfectly today. Our top four girls worked very hard in front of the race as a pack and controlled the tone of the race from the start. Overall, I couldn’t have asked for a better result with four girls in the top five and winning the team title,” head coach Ryan Orner said.

Leading the men’s team this weekend was freshman Avery Campbell who finished 14th overall in 15:35.11.

Not far behind Campbell and barely missing the top 25 were fellow freshmen Aaron Peterson and Jordan Shepard, finishing 26th and 27th at the shared time of 15:45.16.

While Orner is happy with his steadily improving freshman runners, he is “looking forward to having a completely healthy men’s team” to compete at the National Catholic Invitational.

Both of these squads will be back in action on Friday, Sept. 20 at the previously mentioned National Catholic Invitational at Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.