Tickets// THE STARTING LINE
The championship season is upon the University of Cincinnati cross country teams this week as the Bearcats are set to compete in the 2018 American Athletic Conference Cross Country Championships Thursday morning at the Golf Club at Audubon Park in New Orleans, La. The women will lead off the day with their 6,000m championship at 10 a.m. CT (11 a.m. ET) with the men's 8,000m championship following at 10:50 a.m. CT (11:50 a.m. ET).
// FOLLOW US
For up to the minute updates, follow UC Track & Field/Cross Country (@GoBearcatsTFXC) on Twitter, Facebook (GoBearcatsTFXC) and Instagram (GoBearcatsTFXC) and join in the conversation by using the hashtag #Bearcats.
// QUICK SPLITS
• This year's meet marks the sixth AAC Cross Country Championships meet to be held
• The meet will feature all 12 schools in the women's 6,000m race and 10 men's teams in the 8,000m championship competition
• This year marks the first time the UC women have competed in a conference XC meet in New Orleans in program history and the second time for the men after they raced in the 1981 Metro Conference event at City Park
• The stakes will be high as the Top 2 teams will earn trophies and the Top 15 individual finishers will be named all-conference selections
// THE STAKES
As with all championship meets, the stakes will be high Thursday in New Orleans as the meet will crown both team and individual champions for 2018 while also handing out other awards. On the team side of things, the Top 2 teams will earn trophies. Individually, all runners placing in the Top 15 of their race will be designated as all-conference performers.
// RESULTS
Chipped Tech will provide live results of both races (ChippedTech.com/AAC.html) with both TheAmerican.org and GoBearcats.com posting complete results at the end of the competition.
// ON THE AIR
The American Digital Network will stream the championships live on their Facebook page with Dennis McNulty and Paul Boron on the call. Visit Facebook.com/AmericanDigitalNetworkPlus at 9:45 a.m. CT (10:45 a.m. ET) when the live coverage begins.
// WHO'S IN?
The AAC Championships will see 12 schools on hand to compete with the women's competition seeing all 12 member institutions represented while only 10 will race in the men's event. Cincinnati will be joined by ECU, Houston, Memphis, SMU, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, UCF, UConn, USF and Wichita State in the women's race with all but SMU and UCF fielding men's teams.
// BEEN A WHILE
This week's meet will mark the second time the UC men have competed in a conference cross country meet in New Orleans and the first for the women. The previous occasion for the men came in 1981 when Tulane hosted the Metro Conference Championships at City Park in New Orleans. That day, Virginia Tech won the team title with 24 points to edge Florida State (31) while the Bearcats placed third in the six-team field with 97 points. Memphis State, Louisville and Tulane rounded out the teams in the league meet that year.
// GOING GULFING
Thursday's meet will not be the first time the Bearcats have competed in a conference cross country meet in one of the five Gulf States, but it will be the first since the 2003 season when South Florida played host to the Conference USA Championships in Tampa. This week's meet will be the seventh time the women have competed in the Gulf States while the men will be making their ninth appearance. The other locations that have hosted conference meets featuring UC having included Hattiesburg, Miss. (2x), Birmingham, Ala. (2x) and Tampa (2x) for the men and women while the men also have raced in New Orleans and Tallahassee, Fla., once each.
// AAC MEET HISTORY • WOMEN
The AAC has held a championship competition since 2013 (five years) with the UC women posting its best finish in 2016 when the Bearcats placed sixth at the meet held in West Chester, Ohio, at Voice of America MetroPark. That finish was the best since the program placed sixth in 2004, the final year UC was a member of Conference USA. It also snapped a streak of three years in a row that UC placed either 10th (twice) or 11th in the American.
// CONFERENCE HISTORY • WOMEN
Since 1985, the UC women have raced in conference meets with third place showings on six different occasions standing as their best finish. The last time UC placed third was in 1999 as members of Conference USA.
// ALL-CONFERENCE • WOMEN
Individually, 15 different women have earned all-conference honors by placing in the Top 15 of their respective competitions in program history. As members of the American, two Bearcats have earned the accolade, including Juliana Madzia in 2016 and Madison Dunlap last year. Madzia's award was the first for a UC woman as a member of the American and the first attained by the Bearcats program since 2004 when Ruth Limo finished 12th in the Conference USA Championships.
// LAST TIME OUT • 2017 AAC (WOMEN)
Last year, the women scored 209 points and placed ninth overall in the meet held in Philadelphia. Madison Dunlap was the top finisher for the Bearcats as she ran a personal-best time of 22:05.5 to finish 15th overall and earn all-conference accolades for the first time in her career. UConn won the team title with 35 points.
// AAC MEET HISTORY • MEN
In the five previous runnings of the AAC Championships, the UC men have placed in the Top 3 three times, including as the meet runners-up in both 2013 and 2014. The Bearcats have finished in the Top 5 in four of the five meets so far with a fifth-place showing in 2015 and a third-place finish in 2017.
// LAST TIME OUT • 2017 AAC (MEN)
Last year, the Bearcats placed ninth overall with 218 points with then-freshman Ryan Guenthner leading the charge with his 40th-place finish. Tulsa won the team title for the fourth year in a row.
// CONFERENCE HISTORY • MEN
As a team, the UC men have captured two conference crowns in program history, winning back-to-back Conference USA titles in 1995 and 1996. Added to that, the Bearcats have finished in the Top 3 of 20 different conference meets, including three in the AAC.
// ALL-CONFERENCE • MEN
Individually, 25 different UC men have collected 45 all-conference accolades with the most recent coming in 2016 with Toby Loveridge placing seventh for the second year in a row and Dan Huben placing 13th. Since 1980, the Bearcats also have captured the individual race crown five times with Eric Finan the most recent UC champion after he won the 2011 BIG EAST title. Other winners include Mark Gerstner (1992) and Mark Rupe (1993) in the Great Midwest Conference and Chad Disbennett (1995) and Jeremy Bucher (1996) in Conference USA.
// NO STRANGERS TO WINNING
Entering the meet this week, the Bearcats men boast two individuals that have previously won conference titles in Aaron Bienenfeld and Andrew Schille. Bienenfeld, who joined the program in January, is the reigning 10,000m outdoor track champion in the AAC. Schille, who joined the program as a graduate transfer in August, won the 2017 Horizon League cross country title to add to his collection of crowns indoors (mile and 5,000m in 2018) and out (1,500m in 2017).
// REGIONALLY RANKED
Earlier this season, the UC men were ranked in the Great Lakes Region for the first time since Week 6 of the 2016 season when they received back-to-back #13 rankings. Dating back to the start of the rankings in 2008, the UC men have been ranked 36 times with their #8 standing in the preseason and Week 1 of the 2011 season being their highest.
// FEELING HONORED
Aaron Bienenfeld tackled the 8,000m course at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Ky., September 29 and placed ninth overall in the field of 252 runners in the gold race at the Greater Louisville Classic. That run not only saw him cross the finish line in 23:56.8 for his second Top 10 finish of the year, it also earned him the AAC Male Cross Country Athlete of the Week award, the first of his career and the second earned by the UC men so far this year. Bienenfeld's time in Louisville was a 1:04.4 improvement his first 8,000m collegiate race run two weeks prior at the John McNichols Invitational and made him the first UC man to break 24 minutes on an 8k course since Evan Baum ran 23:42.5 at the 2013 AAC Championships in Madison, Conn., finishing sixth overall in the inaugural meet.
// ADDING TO THE HAUL
With his honor earned from the AAC, Bienenfeld becomes not only the second UC man to be honored this year, but also just the second in the history of the program since the Bearcats joined the AAC in 2013 with Andrew Schille being the first. The duo are the first Bearcats to capture a weekly award for the program since 2011 when Eric Finan was named the BIG EAST Cross Country Runner of the Week on October 18 after placing third at the highly-competitive NCAA Pre-National meet.
// BIG IMPROVEMENTS • WOMEN
All season, the women have been posting PRs with three large improvements earned at the Bradley Pink Classic last week. Despite the muddy, wet and sometimes snowy conditions, the trio of Sydney Hess, Sammy Hentz and Hannah Markel each recorded big PRs. Hess improved her 6,000m time by 1:15.9 while Hentz and Markel saw improvements of 33.8 and 22.8, respectively. Katrina Patterson also has been showing big improvements all year as her three 5,000m races ahead of Bradley have netted an improvement of 1:28.5.
// BIG IMPROVEMENTS • MEN
The men also have seen several of their runners post big improvements this year with many of those marks coming at the Greater Louisville Classic where six individuals posted improvements of 40 seconds or more. Leading the way were a pair of freshmen in Christian Stevens and Keifer Mosmeier, who improved over their times from the McNichols Invitational by 1:08 and 1:06.1, respectively. Aaron Bienenfeld posted an improvement of 1:04.4 while Matt Stump's improvement was 52.5. The other two big improvements came from Toni Banos and Ryan Guenthner, who lowered their times by 43.7 and 40.9, respectively.
PREVIOUSLY NOTED
// MORE ON SCHILLE'S WIN
Schille's win brought a bit of history with it as he became just the second man to win the QCI three times in a career, joining former UC All-American Eric Finan with three crowns. Schille's third win also made him the first runner to win for two different teams as he won the past two running for Northern Kentucky before graduating and joining the UC program this fall. His win was the 19th for a UC runner and the first since 2011 when Finan captured his third in the 2011 race.
// ANOTHER FIRST
Schille was not done with history there, however. Following the meet, he was selected as the American Athletic Conference Men's Cross Country Athlete of the Week. He is the first UC runner (man or woman) to collect a weekly award from the AAC since the league was founded in 2013. Going back to previous conference affiliations, Schille is the first UC athlete to earn a weekly award since Finan was named the BIG EAST Runner of the Week on October 18, 2011.
// NEW TO THE TEAM - WOMEN
The newest additions to the women's roster this year include five true freshmen and one redshirt sophomore. The five freshmen include Maggie Breitenstein (Cincinnati/St. Ursula), Leah Maschino (Maineville, Ohio/Kings), Janey McManus (Huntsville, Ala./Grissom), Madalyn O'Dea (Louisville/Christian Academy) and Rylee Penn (Corona, Calif./Centennial). The final newcomer is Ellee Bullock (Dublin, Ohio/Jerome). Bullock has been a member of two collegiate tennis programs, starting her career at Utah State before transferring to UC in time for the 2017-18 season.
// NEW TO THE TEAM - MEN
The men's newcomers include a mix of three true freshmen, one sophomore, one junior and one graduate senior. The rookies include Toni Banos (Spain), Keifer Mosmeier (Laurelville, Ohio/Logan Elm) and Christian Stevens (Indianapolis/Brebeuf Jesuit), with Jack Cordonnier (Morrow, Ohio/St. Xavier) joining as a sophomore after running for the UC Running Club last year. The final two newcomers have had great success in college already, including Aaron Bienenfeld (Germany), who joined the UC program in time for the 2018 track & field season in which he won the AAC 10,000m outdoor title, and Andrew Schille (Cincinnati/Oak Hills), a graduate transfer from NKU where he was a four-time champion in the Horizon League and a 10-time All-Horizon League selection.
// UP NEXT
The Bearcats will return to Terre Haute, Ind., for the 2018 NCAA Great Lakes Region Championships Friday, November 9. The women will lead off the regional competition with a 6,000m race at 11:15 a.m. while the men close out the day with their 10,000m race at 12:15 p.m. The races will both be held at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course, the same venue that played host to the John McNichols Invitational earlier this season.
The championship season is upon the University of Cincinnati cross country teams this week as the Bearcats are set to compete in the 2018 American Athletic Conference Cross Country Championships Thursday morning at the Golf Club at Audubon Park in New Orleans, La. The women will lead off the day with their 6,000m championship at 10 a.m. CT (11 a.m. ET) with the men's 8,000m championship following at 10:50 a.m. CT (11:50 a.m. ET).
// FOLLOW US
For up to the minute updates, follow UC Track & Field/Cross Country (@GoBearcatsTFXC) on Twitter, Facebook (GoBearcatsTFXC) and Instagram (GoBearcatsTFXC) and join in the conversation by using the hashtag #Bearcats.
// QUICK SPLITS
• This year's meet marks the sixth AAC Cross Country Championships meet to be held
• The meet will feature all 12 schools in the women's 6,000m race and 10 men's teams in the 8,000m championship competition
• This year marks the first time the UC women have competed in a conference XC meet in New Orleans in program history and the second time for the men after they raced in the 1981 Metro Conference event at City Park
• The stakes will be high as the Top 2 teams will earn trophies and the Top 15 individual finishers will be named all-conference selections
// THE STAKES
As with all championship meets, the stakes will be high Thursday in New Orleans as the meet will crown both team and individual champions for 2018 while also handing out other awards. On the team side of things, the Top 2 teams will earn trophies. Individually, all runners placing in the Top 15 of their race will be designated as all-conference performers.
// RESULTS
Chipped Tech will provide live results of both races (ChippedTech.com/AAC.html) with both TheAmerican.org and GoBearcats.com posting complete results at the end of the competition.
// ON THE AIR
The American Digital Network will stream the championships live on their Facebook page with Dennis McNulty and Paul Boron on the call. Visit Facebook.com/AmericanDigitalNetworkPlus at 9:45 a.m. CT (10:45 a.m. ET) when the live coverage begins.
// WHO'S IN?
The AAC Championships will see 12 schools on hand to compete with the women's competition seeing all 12 member institutions represented while only 10 will race in the men's event. Cincinnati will be joined by ECU, Houston, Memphis, SMU, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, UCF, UConn, USF and Wichita State in the women's race with all but SMU and UCF fielding men's teams.
// BEEN A WHILE
This week's meet will mark the second time the UC men have competed in a conference cross country meet in New Orleans and the first for the women. The previous occasion for the men came in 1981 when Tulane hosted the Metro Conference Championships at City Park in New Orleans. That day, Virginia Tech won the team title with 24 points to edge Florida State (31) while the Bearcats placed third in the six-team field with 97 points. Memphis State, Louisville and Tulane rounded out the teams in the league meet that year.
// GOING GULFING
Thursday's meet will not be the first time the Bearcats have competed in a conference cross country meet in one of the five Gulf States, but it will be the first since the 2003 season when South Florida played host to the Conference USA Championships in Tampa. This week's meet will be the seventh time the women have competed in the Gulf States while the men will be making their ninth appearance. The other locations that have hosted conference meets featuring UC having included Hattiesburg, Miss. (2x), Birmingham, Ala. (2x) and Tampa (2x) for the men and women while the men also have raced in New Orleans and Tallahassee, Fla., once each.
// AAC MEET HISTORY • WOMEN
The AAC has held a championship competition since 2013 (five years) with the UC women posting its best finish in 2016 when the Bearcats placed sixth at the meet held in West Chester, Ohio, at Voice of America MetroPark. That finish was the best since the program placed sixth in 2004, the final year UC was a member of Conference USA. It also snapped a streak of three years in a row that UC placed either 10th (twice) or 11th in the American.
// CONFERENCE HISTORY • WOMEN
Since 1985, the UC women have raced in conference meets with third place showings on six different occasions standing as their best finish. The last time UC placed third was in 1999 as members of Conference USA.
// ALL-CONFERENCE • WOMEN
Individually, 15 different women have earned all-conference honors by placing in the Top 15 of their respective competitions in program history. As members of the American, two Bearcats have earned the accolade, including Juliana Madzia in 2016 and Madison Dunlap last year. Madzia's award was the first for a UC woman as a member of the American and the first attained by the Bearcats program since 2004 when Ruth Limo finished 12th in the Conference USA Championships.
// LAST TIME OUT • 2017 AAC (WOMEN)
Last year, the women scored 209 points and placed ninth overall in the meet held in Philadelphia. Madison Dunlap was the top finisher for the Bearcats as she ran a personal-best time of 22:05.5 to finish 15th overall and earn all-conference accolades for the first time in her career. UConn won the team title with 35 points.
// AAC MEET HISTORY • MEN
In the five previous runnings of the AAC Championships, the UC men have placed in the Top 3 three times, including as the meet runners-up in both 2013 and 2014. The Bearcats have finished in the Top 5 in four of the five meets so far with a fifth-place showing in 2015 and a third-place finish in 2017.
// LAST TIME OUT • 2017 AAC (MEN)
Last year, the Bearcats placed ninth overall with 218 points with then-freshman Ryan Guenthner leading the charge with his 40th-place finish. Tulsa won the team title for the fourth year in a row.
// CONFERENCE HISTORY • MEN
As a team, the UC men have captured two conference crowns in program history, winning back-to-back Conference USA titles in 1995 and 1996. Added to that, the Bearcats have finished in the Top 3 of 20 different conference meets, including three in the AAC.
// ALL-CONFERENCE • MEN
Individually, 25 different UC men have collected 45 all-conference accolades with the most recent coming in 2016 with Toby Loveridge placing seventh for the second year in a row and Dan Huben placing 13th. Since 1980, the Bearcats also have captured the individual race crown five times with Eric Finan the most recent UC champion after he won the 2011 BIG EAST title. Other winners include Mark Gerstner (1992) and Mark Rupe (1993) in the Great Midwest Conference and Chad Disbennett (1995) and Jeremy Bucher (1996) in Conference USA.
// NO STRANGERS TO WINNING
Entering the meet this week, the Bearcats men boast two individuals that have previously won conference titles in Aaron Bienenfeld and Andrew Schille. Bienenfeld, who joined the program in January, is the reigning 10,000m outdoor track champion in the AAC. Schille, who joined the program as a graduate transfer in August, won the 2017 Horizon League cross country title to add to his collection of crowns indoors (mile and 5,000m in 2018) and out (1,500m in 2017).
// REGIONALLY RANKED
Earlier this season, the UC men were ranked in the Great Lakes Region for the first time since Week 6 of the 2016 season when they received back-to-back #13 rankings. Dating back to the start of the rankings in 2008, the UC men have been ranked 36 times with their #8 standing in the preseason and Week 1 of the 2011 season being their highest.
// FEELING HONORED
Aaron Bienenfeld tackled the 8,000m course at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Ky., September 29 and placed ninth overall in the field of 252 runners in the gold race at the Greater Louisville Classic. That run not only saw him cross the finish line in 23:56.8 for his second Top 10 finish of the year, it also earned him the AAC Male Cross Country Athlete of the Week award, the first of his career and the second earned by the UC men so far this year. Bienenfeld's time in Louisville was a 1:04.4 improvement his first 8,000m collegiate race run two weeks prior at the John McNichols Invitational and made him the first UC man to break 24 minutes on an 8k course since Evan Baum ran 23:42.5 at the 2013 AAC Championships in Madison, Conn., finishing sixth overall in the inaugural meet.
// ADDING TO THE HAUL
With his honor earned from the AAC, Bienenfeld becomes not only the second UC man to be honored this year, but also just the second in the history of the program since the Bearcats joined the AAC in 2013 with Andrew Schille being the first. The duo are the first Bearcats to capture a weekly award for the program since 2011 when Eric Finan was named the BIG EAST Cross Country Runner of the Week on October 18 after placing third at the highly-competitive NCAA Pre-National meet.
// BIG IMPROVEMENTS • WOMEN
All season, the women have been posting PRs with three large improvements earned at the Bradley Pink Classic last week. Despite the muddy, wet and sometimes snowy conditions, the trio of Sydney Hess, Sammy Hentz and Hannah Markel each recorded big PRs. Hess improved her 6,000m time by 1:15.9 while Hentz and Markel saw improvements of 33.8 and 22.8, respectively. Katrina Patterson also has been showing big improvements all year as her three 5,000m races ahead of Bradley have netted an improvement of 1:28.5.
// BIG IMPROVEMENTS • MEN
The men also have seen several of their runners post big improvements this year with many of those marks coming at the Greater Louisville Classic where six individuals posted improvements of 40 seconds or more. Leading the way were a pair of freshmen in Christian Stevens and Keifer Mosmeier, who improved over their times from the McNichols Invitational by 1:08 and 1:06.1, respectively. Aaron Bienenfeld posted an improvement of 1:04.4 while Matt Stump's improvement was 52.5. The other two big improvements came from Toni Banos and Ryan Guenthner, who lowered their times by 43.7 and 40.9, respectively.
PREVIOUSLY NOTED
// MORE ON SCHILLE'S WIN
Schille's win brought a bit of history with it as he became just the second man to win the QCI three times in a career, joining former UC All-American Eric Finan with three crowns. Schille's third win also made him the first runner to win for two different teams as he won the past two running for Northern Kentucky before graduating and joining the UC program this fall. His win was the 19th for a UC runner and the first since 2011 when Finan captured his third in the 2011 race.
// ANOTHER FIRST
Schille was not done with history there, however. Following the meet, he was selected as the American Athletic Conference Men's Cross Country Athlete of the Week. He is the first UC runner (man or woman) to collect a weekly award from the AAC since the league was founded in 2013. Going back to previous conference affiliations, Schille is the first UC athlete to earn a weekly award since Finan was named the BIG EAST Runner of the Week on October 18, 2011.
// NEW TO THE TEAM - WOMEN
The newest additions to the women's roster this year include five true freshmen and one redshirt sophomore. The five freshmen include Maggie Breitenstein (Cincinnati/St. Ursula), Leah Maschino (Maineville, Ohio/Kings), Janey McManus (Huntsville, Ala./Grissom), Madalyn O'Dea (Louisville/Christian Academy) and Rylee Penn (Corona, Calif./Centennial). The final newcomer is Ellee Bullock (Dublin, Ohio/Jerome). Bullock has been a member of two collegiate tennis programs, starting her career at Utah State before transferring to UC in time for the 2017-18 season.
// NEW TO THE TEAM - MEN
The men's newcomers include a mix of three true freshmen, one sophomore, one junior and one graduate senior. The rookies include Toni Banos (Spain), Keifer Mosmeier (Laurelville, Ohio/Logan Elm) and Christian Stevens (Indianapolis/Brebeuf Jesuit), with Jack Cordonnier (Morrow, Ohio/St. Xavier) joining as a sophomore after running for the UC Running Club last year. The final two newcomers have had great success in college already, including Aaron Bienenfeld (Germany), who joined the UC program in time for the 2018 track & field season in which he won the AAC 10,000m outdoor title, and Andrew Schille (Cincinnati/Oak Hills), a graduate transfer from NKU where he was a four-time champion in the Horizon League and a 10-time All-Horizon League selection.
// UP NEXT
The Bearcats will return to Terre Haute, Ind., for the 2018 NCAA Great Lakes Region Championships Friday, November 9. The women will lead off the regional competition with a 6,000m race at 11:15 a.m. while the men close out the day with their 10,000m race at 12:15 p.m. The races will both be held at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course, the same venue that played host to the John McNichols Invitational earlier this season.