The Aquinas men’s cross country team is off to a running start.

The Saints opened their season on Saturday, Sept. 20 at the Calvin College Invitational, placing fifth out of eleven teams in the meet.

Coach Mike Wojiciakowski was pleased with how his runners performed in the meet.

“It was a really good performance for our first race,” Wojiciakowski said. “It was probably our best starting point we’ve ever had to start the season.”

Freshman Mike Gravelyn finished first for Aquinas at the meet with a time of 26:02, followed by Junior Rob Veldman with a time of 26:09 and Senior Chris Leikert at 26:10. Gravelyn, Veldman, and Leikert finished 13th, 17th and 18th respectively.

Other scorers for the Saints were freshmen Mike Morgan and Nick Thelen, running 26:22 and 26:24 to earn them 25th and 26th place in the meet respectively and an overall fifth place finish for the team.

The Saints also competed on Saturday, Sept. 27 in the Sean Earl Lakefront Invitational in Chicago, Illinois. The men finished fifth out of over 40 teams at the meet.

Junior Andy Vereecke said that the invitational was a good performance for the team.

“Overall, it was a good showing. Not everyone ran how they wanted to, but we did run what we expected to,” he said. “That’s all you can ask for.”

With two meets in the history books for 2008, the male runners are optimistic for the remainder of the season.

“The season has been going just as planned,” Leikert said. “We’ve been executing really well in our races and have been improving and running faster each meet.”

“We are right where we wanted to be right now,” Vereecke added. “We have a few guys hurt and ill and we are working on getting everyone to full strength. Nationals are not until November, so we have plenty of time to get there.”

One of the main goals of the runners this season is to win the conference championship for the seventh consecutive year.

“Each year, our goal is to win the conference,” Wojciakowski said. “Then at nationals, we just want to go run our best race of the year, whether that places us first, fifth, or twentieth.

“As long as we run what we are supposed to run, the rest will take care of itself.”

“All we can do is try to improve everyday and see what happens at the end.”

The Men’s Cross Country team will run at Riverside Park on Oct. 25 at noon and on Nov. 8 at 11 p.m. for the conference championship. In the meantime, the Saints will run in Kenosha, Wisc. at the Lucian Rosa Parkside Invitational on Oct. 11.