The Inaugural Irish Invitational Recap

A Dominating Performance at Our First Ever Home Meet

Oct 09, 2023

We had our first-ever home cross country meet, the Irish Invitational, at Madeline Bertrand County Park this past Friday, October 6th! It was great to welcome NIRCA teams from across the Midwest. Purdue, Indiana, Illinois State, Northwestern, Butler, and Western Michigan attended, in addition to Notre Dame.

Two hours before the race as we were finalizing everything, race conditions were ideal, with temperatures in the low 60s and cloudy skies. However, that is not when the race was. The rain started right before the Women’s 6K at 4:45pm. By the time the Men’s race began, the trails were muddy which led to slippery conditions and slower times.

Although the course was muddy and slow, it was true to distance. Don’t be fooled by the watches messing up the GPS in the woods. For the women watches ranged from 3.48-3.73 miles and 4.74mi-5.01 miles for the men. Since the course was muddy, people are saying that you can subtract 15 seconds off the women’s times and 30 seconds off the men’s times if it were run in non-muddy conditions. Furthermore, if it were run on a non-trail course, you could subtract 30 seconds and 1 minute for the women and men respectively. However, the trails and technical course are what make this course a true cross country race.

On the women’s side, freshman Emily Reeves from Purdue led the race from wire to wire. On the men’s side, sophomore Pete Heesters from Notre Dame won the race with a time of 26:57. It is also important to note that Pete and the top three men made a wrong turn since the course lines disappeared due to the rain which added about 10 seconds. He had to then backtrack before regaining the lead. Emily and Pete are both underclassmen, so it will be great to see the things that they do throughout their college careers. To see the latest individual national rankings refer to this Google Sheet.

Notre Dame Women - Team Champions

Purdue Women - Runner-Up

For the women’s race, the #7 Notre Dame Fighting Irish dominated. Their top 5 took 2nd-6th place respectively. The #2 Purdue Boilermakers also had a great race and were the runner-up. It is also important to note, that Purdue didn’t bring their whole team, so they are still deserving of the #2 spot in the NIRCA Coaches Poll. Notre Dame can’t thank Purdue enough for coming. They were the only other women’s team with 5 runners. Therefore, this would have not been an official NIRCA race without them.

Notre Dame Men - Team Champions

Purdue Men - Runner-Up

On the men’s side, it was a battle between #6 Purdue and #9 Notre Dame. When all was said and done, Notre Dame came out on top by just 2 points. However, it is important to note that Purdue didn’t have a lot of their top 7. On a similar note, Notre Dame didn’t have their #5 and #6 runners.

Women Top 10: Emily Reeves - Purdue, Emily Arenas - Notre Dame, Gracie Wetli - Notre Dame, Sarah Mirkin - Notre Dame, Audrey Christo - Notre Dame, Ingrid Corpus - Notre Dame, Paige Egan - Notre Dame, Karson Girvin - Notre Dame, Lucy Noris - Notre Dame, and Kayla Anderson - Notre Dame.

Men Top 10: Pete Heesters - Notre Dame, Zami Moscoso - Purdue, Aaron Hendryx - Indiana, Brian Lovejoy - Northwestern, Jack Fan - Purdue, Ryan Fryer - Notre Dame, Owen Donaher - Notre Dame, Sean Uhran - Notre Dame, Leo Kurtz - Notre Dame, and Logan Rodi - Western Michigan.

Notre Dame Women’s 6K Race Results: Emily Arenas - 23:32.4, Gracie Wetli - 24:03.6, Sarah Mirkin - 24:17.8, Audrey Christo - 24:34.4, Ingrid Corpus - 24:38.0, Karson Girvin - 25:02.9, Lucy Noris - 25:41.3, Kayla Anderson - 25:47.5, Jenny Wolf - 26:10.1, Michela Giura - 26:15.8, and Katie Burke - 31:25.8.

Notre Dame Men’s 8K Race Results: Pete Heesters - 26:57.1, Ryan Fryer - 27:32.0, Owen Donaher - 27:34.7, Sean Uhran - 27:36.1, Zach Wrobel - 29:05.3, Connor Paszkiewicz - 29:16.6, Thomas Joyce - 29:34.6, Joshua Frabutt - 30:15.0, Carter Dauenhaur - 30:35.3, Andrew Jitendran - 31:10.3, Dominik Bartsch - 31:25.5, Zeke Wigutow - 31:25.5, Nathan Gafney - 32:36.7, Kevin Taylor - 33:52.8, Jonathan Karr - 33:55.7, Connor Evan 34:01.7, and Luke Aragon - 35:51.9.

The Notre Dame Running Club women are currently ranked #7 in the country and the men are ranked #9 as of the Week 4 NIRCA Coaches Poll.

Special Shoutouts:
15 Races: Andrew Jitendran

5 Races: Kayla Anderson

1st Race: Katie Burke and Dominik Bartsch

Race Results

Running Results Database

Race Photos

The Origin Story

Early in the spring Jonathan presented the crazy idea of hosting a home meet in October. Ryan’s goal was to create a NIRCA cross country meet similar to a high school conference meet. He wanted a way to combine the NIRCA Great Lakes and Great Plains regions to determine who’s the best team in the Midwest. Over the course of the summer, Karson, Ryan, and Jonathan had long chats regarding the formation of the Irish Invitational. When all of the parks were booked, Jonathan called Madeline Bertrand County Park again, and it turned out that the park became available for Friday, October 6th. The race to get everything coordinated was on! Jonathan created the course, got in contact with Michiana Timing, and reached out to other clubs along with Ryan’s help. Karson got all the contracts signed; Emily worked to make sure that everything was paid for; Ryan designed the trophies; and Gracie, Jenny, and Lucy designed the T-shirts. It was great to see the meet come to fruition after all the hard work was put into coordinating it.

Thank You

We thank Madeline Bertrand County Park, Michiana Timing, the University of Notre Dame, and all of the clubs for making this possible. We also thank our race day volunteers for making this possible: Danny O’Gara, Steven Licini, Alec Dinerstein, and Dana Horgen. The entire team came together to make this work, and we are so grateful to everyone who made this possible.

Looking Forward

We had a blast at the Irish Invitational, and are excited to host again next year. Other clubs, make sure to check your email for a feedback survey so that we can improve the meet in the years to come.

Our next two official races are NIRCA Regionals and Nationals on Saturday, October 28th, and November 11th. It is a great way to cap off the season! The top 6 women’s teams and 7 men’s teams at the Great Lakes Regional will qualify for Nationals. So we are excited to bring a full team to Regionals in order to punch our tickets to Nationals. We also will have a few runners running the Bradley Pink Classic this coming Friday as an additional opportunity.