Roy Griak is a name of power in Minnesota cross country history. The legendary University of Minnesota cross-country coach was at the head of Minnesota cross-country programs for fifty years, and the competition bearing his name remains one of the premier events for cross-country teams around the United States.

Both of the Hamline cross country programs competed in the Division III portion of the meet. The men competed in an eight-team field, the women in a fourteen-team field. Their fourth-place finish gave the men the best result they had in years, and they missed out on a top-three finish by just two points. The women’s tenth-place finish was a small step back after last year’s eighth-place finish in a 17-team field.

“The Roy Griak is historically a slower course because it’s a really challenging course,” said newly appointed men and women’s cross country head coach Devin Monson. “The biggest thing is to see our runners improve their time from last year on this course and the first-years get into the flow of running at the collegiate level.”

The 2016 iteration of the Roy Griak Invitational was the 31st annual running of the meet. The race takes place on the University of Minnesota-St. Paul campus and is known for being hilly and demanding, especially for younger runners who haven’t experienced the course before.

Senior James Logan paced the Piper teams with a ninth-place finish overall, missing an eighth-place finish by just two seconds. Logan was generally pleased with the result of the race.

“We finished fourth as a team, which was a big step up for us,” said Logan. “It’s an early meet so it’s not quite as important as the MIAC Championships or the Regions Championships, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.”

With just one senior on the ten-person roster, the women’s cross country team doesn’t quite feature the depth or experience of the men’s team, and with further experience in the race, the team should finish much better in future Griak races. For the rest of the year, senior Sarissa Falk is looking for her teammates to improve on their personal records.

“If you get a personal record, it means you moved up for the team,” said Falk. “If every girl can move up, it’ll help us place a lot better.”

Their tenth-place finish wasn’t optimal, but sophomore Maddy Dopp believes the outcome was more than fair.

“Tough courses reward tough runners,” said Dopp.

As the Griak meet was only the second competition of the year for each team, the men and women both have lots of time to improve before the MIAC Championship and Central Regional Championships. Neither team placed higher than seventh last year in the MIAC Championship, and Falk makes it clear that the women’s team is shooting for an improvement over their tenth-place finish.

“We didn’t finish well in conference last year,” said Falk. “If we could pick a goal, it would be to finish top five.”

The men have a similar goal of improvement.

“A great way to go out would be to finish top three in the MIAC as a team,” said Logan. “We really want to start getting the program back to where it should be.”

Coach Monson was promoted from assistant to head coach of both teams after previous head coach, Paul Schmaedeke, began to step back from his responsibilities with the cross country teams and the track and field program. Monson is happy to be coaching both teams and enjoys the many issues that go into coaching two collegiate teams at once.

“It’s fun to coach both genders because they both are going through the same things,” said Monson. “Both are sacrificing, both are going out and running every single day, but they offer different perspectives and they gel really well together.”

With Falk as the only senior on the team, Monson is just looking for more runners to step up for the women’s team.

“On the girls side, I have no idea who’s going to be the first runner and the seventh runner,” said Monson, speaking of the seven-runner roster each coach must use during meets. “It changes so much. While it can be frustrating for me sometimes because I might not know who’s gonna do it today, it’s exciting because the possibilities are awesome.”

It’s all about improvement for Monson, as the team’s record has no bearing on how well or poorly they will run at the conference championships.

“One thing that’s nice about our season is it doesn’t matter what happens before MIAC,” said Monson. “In other sports, your record sort of determines if you make play-offs, what seeding you have. In CC [conference championships], on the day of the championship, nothing that happened beforehand matters.”

With just three seniors between the two teams, the younger runners are hoping to send their leaders off with a bang and the seniors are hoping to set a good example for the team members who will follow them.

“At the end of the season, we want to be able to look back and look at the process and see what we accomplished as a team,” said Falk. “That goes beyond how we placed. It goes into how we worked together as a team, how we incorporated the freshmen in, and overall having fun and being healthy throughout the year.”

The next meet for both teams will take place on Oct. 8 at the St. Catherine Invitational.