The EMU Men’s and Women’s cross country teams got off to a fast start in their 2023 home opener on Friday, Sept. 5. Bellamy Immanuel ran to a first-place finish in the men’s 5k while the women took first place as a team with a score of 34, just three points ahead of second place, Emory & Henry College.
In the women’s 5k, senior Lucy Unzicker led the Royals pack with a time of 19:49, which put her in second place overall, just 1.5 seconds behind DII runner Jessica Looney. “She is really well prepared for the season, and she showed that qualifying for the national championship is a possibility,” said Coach Bob Hepler. “She barely lost to a really fast woman and also beat a really fast woman.”
Senior Vanessa Gardiner finished 4th with a time of 20:01; sophomore Elili Asefa placed 5th clocking in at 20:12, and junior Jenna Weaver crossed the line at 20:26 putting her in 7th. Graduate Student Jessica Buckwalter rounded out the scoring for the Royals with her 16th-place finish at a time of 21:43.
On the men’s side, junior Bellamy Immanuel looked in mid-season form as he cruised past the competition. He crossed the line with a winning time of 15:51, beating the second-place runner by 22 seconds. Immanuel was followed by senior Dawsen Woodruff as the second Royal to cross the finish line. Woodruff picked up a time of 18:10. Junior Nate Lehman also showed promise in the opener where he dropped 52 seconds off his time from last year’s meet.
Immanuel’s race earned him ODAC Men’s Runner of the Week. Immanuel is a junior out of Allentown, PA but is only in his second year running cross country. He was a member of the soccer team during his first year at EMU. His time of 15:51 on Friday was not only a personal 5k best but also a course and meet record. “I didn’t know I had the course record,” Immanuel said, “but it felt good to get first place.” The junior has high hopes for the season ahead. He said, “my main goal is to go to nationals, and my other goal is to go sub-25 [minutes] in the 8k.”
The Royals had a total of nine first-year runners make their college debuts–three runners on the women’s side and six on the men’s. Zoe Clymer, Ashley De La Cruz, and Daisy Buller ran in their first race for the women, and Charlie O’Neil, Alex Belisle, Caleb Metzler, Abenezer Abebe, Ben Huyard, and Ethan Kanagy had their first start for the men. While looking to fill the last two scoring spots on the men’s team, Coach Hepler expects the first-year runners to step up: “the freshman are really talented and it very well could be two of them.” He went on to say, “their training is all about getting them ready for the conference meet.”
The Royals will travel next to Newport News, Virginia for the CNU Invitational on Friday, Sept. 15 where they hope to build on their success. The men’s 8k gun will fire at 5:30 p.m. with the women’s 6k to follow at 6:20 p.m.
