Men's Cross Country: Season-in-Review
UNIVERSITY PARK, IL—It was a historic season for the Governors State men's cross country program in 2021, highlighted by the first national qualifier in team history.
Following a four-year career at Division I Tennessee-Martin, Bourbonnais native Lenny Baumann enrolled at GSU as a postgrad and galvanized the program. Baumann placed 10th at the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships to qualify for NAIA Nationals, becoming the first GSU male runner to earn All-CCAC honors. Baumann finished 149th out of 330 runners at the 66th NAIA National Championships in Vancouver, Washington on November 19.
Baumann set team records for 5,000 and 8,000 meters—15:29.3 and 26:02.00 respectively—lowering the previous standards by two-and-a-half minutes. He placed in the Top-10 five times, finishing third at the Purdue Northwest Classic and the Great Lakes Challenge, the highest individual finishes in team history.
A subplot to the season was Baumann's friendly rivalry with Kenyan Josphat Chumba of Judson. The runners crossed paths six times and were often separated by a few seconds at the finish line. Chumba got the better of four encounters but Baumann had the final say, finishing two spots ahead of Chumba at the NAIAs.
"Lenny came in on a mission, it was his goal to go to nationals and he accomplished that. He did everything that was asked of him and his work ethic rubbed off on the rest of the team," said GSU's Kevin Kredens, who completed his seventh season as the only head coach the program has known. "It was wonderful to have the opportunity to go to nationals with Lenny, to compete at a venue like the Fort Washington course against the very best in the nation. It shows how far we've come as a program."
Another GSU runner who benefited from hard work was sophomore Dante Miller, who set a PR of 34:47.21 to finish 95th overall (second-best on the team) at the CCACs. One of two returnees from 2020, Miller received the team's Most Improved Award, extending his race appearance streak to 10 meets.
Aside from Baumann and Miller, the rest of GSU's roster was comprised of players from the Jaguar soccer team. Miguel Navarrete returned for a second go-around and shared the best 8K time among the footballers at 35:38.50, the result of finishing in a dead heat with teammate Bryan Perez at the Great Lakes Challenge in Grand Rapids, Mich. Perez appeared in just two races but was GSU's third-best performer at the conference championships. He joined the team at mid-season along with Edson Gonzalez, Christopher Groesbeck and Isaac Alatorre.
Eric Espinoza often ran side-by-side with Navarrete during races and stamped a PR of 36:09.10 at the Great Lakes Challenge. Daniel Jonna also made the transition from the pitch to the prairies, earning three starts.
"The soccer players wanted to run, wanted to race," said Kredens. "They had the desire to get better and I think it showed in the last few meets when we beat a few teams."
Kredens also credited the addition of assistant coaches John Niendorf and Dave Ladehoff as having a positive effect on the team. "They brought a level of excitement and a new regimen that our guys really took to and with it came results."
