Bradley Men Claim Fifth-Straight MVC Championship; Jake Hoffert wins Second Individual Title

Cross Country 11/2/2019 3:23:00 PM

The Bradley men's cross country team rewrote the record book on Saturday as the Braves matched a conference record by winning their fifth-straight Missouri Valley Conference Championship and senior Jake Hoffert became the first runner in school history to claim two individual MVC crowns.

The Braves are the first team since Wichita State from 1971 to 1975 to win five-straight MVC Men's Championships, matching the conference record. On the women's side, Bradley registered its seventh-straight top-two finish at the meet, finishing as runner up on Saturday.

Overall, the Bradley men featured the top four finishers and five of the top seven to set a modern-day conference record with 17 points in the winning effort, easily defeating runner-up Drake with 74 points. The Braves just missed a perfect score with their 17 points the fewest since Drake scored 15 in a two-team race in 1947.

"Today was a special performance by our men and as dominant as we have ever been before," said 2019 Missouri Valley Conference Men's Coach of the Year, Darren Gauson. "I don't think we have had five come together and run what they are capable of this season but we did that today. We came out really well, set the tone early and it allowed everyone to relax. I also thought we did a good job of handling the conditions well. Today's performance was right up there with last year's regional in terms of execution and it puts us in a great position to be a top team at regionals again in two weeks"

Individually, Hoffert led the Braves with an 8K time of 24:46.1 – winning his second Valley crown by more than 15 seconds. Also victorious in 2017, Hoffert is the first two-time champion in program history as Rod Collins in 1965 is the only other Bradley individual champion. Hoffert also became the first Brave in school history to collect all-conference honors in all four of his seasons on campus.

Five Braves, overall, earned all-conference accolades on Saturday as senior Luke Hoffert placed second in 25:01.3, redshirt freshman Matthew Richtman was third in 25:05.6, senior Ben Potrykus was fourth in 25:05.6 and sophomore Jack Franklin was seventh in 25:16.8.

Richtman matched Jake Hoffert's record for the top finish by a Bradley freshman (Hoffert also placed third in 2016), while he becomes the second-straight Bradley runner and fourth in the last six years to earn MVC Freshman of the Year accolades (Michael Ward in 2014, Jake Hoffert in 2016 and Jack Franklin in 2018). Fellow rookie Drew Wenger placed 14th on Saturday and received honorable mention to the All-Valley team.

Franklin also received the MVC Elite 17 Award for owning the top GPA by an all-conference student-athlete on Saturday.

"I'm really happy for our team," Gauson said. "We had the Athlete of the Year, Freshman of the Year and 17 points overall. Jake won it two years ago and has been great all season. Today highlighted his quality all season and what he has meant to this program. Just a dominant performance from the men today."

Junior McKenzie Altmayer and sophomore Tyler Schwartz both earned all-conference accolades for the second time during their career to lead the Bradley women to their seventh-straight top-two finish at the conference meet (titles in 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018; runner-up finishes in 2013, 2016 and 2019). Altmayer placed seventh with a time of 18:38.4 over the 5K course, while Schwartz was right behind in 10th place in 18:41.1.

Sophomore Ayah Aldadah and senior Abby Jockisch both received honorable mention to the all-conference teams as Aldadah was 11th in 18:41.7 and Jockisch was 15th in 18:53.3. Senior Gabby Juarez rounded out the scoring for BU with a 19th-place finish in 19:01.1.

Rookie Sophia McDonnell earned MVC Freshman of the Year accolades after placing 23rd overall with a time of 19:19.7, becoming the second-straight BU runner to earn the accolade (Schwartz last season).

"Loyola had an outstanding day and used a strong start to win the title today," Gauson said. They executed a great game plan and sometimes you just have to tip your cap."

Loyola took home the team title with 17 points as Bradley finished second with 64 and Indiana State was third with 92.

Bradley is back in action in two weeks as it looks to qualify for the NCAA Championship. The NCAA Midwest Regional is set for Friday, Nov. 15 at Oklahoma State with two automatic team bids up for grabs.

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