Huskers Take Second at Greeno/Dirksen Invitational

LINCOLN, Neb. — The Nebraska cross country team co-hosted the 28th annual Greeno/Dirksen Invitational along with Nebraska Wesleyan on Saturday morning at Pioneers Park. 

Both the Nebraska women and men earned second-place finishes in the Division I races. The women scored 55 points in the 6K race behind South Dakota (22). The men finished with 51 points in the 8K race behind Iowa (29).

Nebraska Head Coach David Harris was proud of Saturday’s performance by the runners.

"I think we ran really solid today," said Harris. "Coming off of some hard weeks of practice, we still showed up here. We didn’t have fresh legs, but we competed hard. I was happy that we had some very good DI schools here. It was nice to have good competition."

Senior Bonnie Smith led the women's team, placing seventh overall with a time of 22:20.0. Sophomore Rachel Brush placed ninth (22:22.8) and redshirt freshman Lillian Markusch followed in 12th place (22:38.6).

"Bonnie Smith had her best race as a Husker today," Harris said. "I thought she got up and competed well in the race. I think this was her best race ever at Nebraska."

Senior Austin Post led the men's team, placing third overall with a time of 25:46.7. Redshirt freshman Mark Freyhof finished in fifth place (25:50.9) with Junior Eric Karl II following in 10th place (26:20.2).

"[Austin Post] has been working as hard as anybody," Harris said. "He’s a senior so he knows this place. He's a leader for the team, he's a leader as a captain. It was nice to see Austin up there. Even at the end he was hurting, but he came up and went around somebody."

The Huskers will be in action on Saturday, Sept. 30 at the Sam Bell Invitational in Bloomington, Indiana.