CARMEL, Ind. - With classmates Nate Kaiser and Brennan Butche leading the way, the IUPUI men's cross country team earned a third-place finish against stiff competition at the season opening Butler Twilight at Northview Church on Friday night (Sept. 3). Cincinnati won the six-team event with a score of 25 and host Butler was second at 46. IUPUI placed third with 68 points, easily defeating DePaul (104), Indianapolis (146) and Xavier (154). 

"I'm proud of the guys who ran tonight," head coach Chuck Koeppen said. "It's just fun to see them come out here and compete because they've been working their tails off all summer long and all preseason. This was kind of a home meet for a lot of our guys, so I know that brings some extra excitement and some butterflies for some of them.

"I thought they did a nice job tonight. Kaiser has had a great summer and looked really good today and so did Butche. Some other guys like Eric Petersen and Nick Perkins and Mitchell Rans did a nice job too, so that was fun to see. I'm just excited about this group of guys and I'm excited to see where the season takes us because those guys up front from Cincinnati and Butler were really, really good."

Kaiser paced the group from the opening gun, running the 6,000m race in a time of 18:18.1 to place eighth among 69 runners. His time was the quickest-ever by an IUPUI runner at the Butler Opener, surpassing the previous mark of 18:22 run by Robert Murphy to start the 2016 campaign. 

Butche slotted in just behind him in tenth with a time of 18:24.6 and Petersen crossed at 18:31.3. 

Perkins placed 16th overall at 18:34.5 and Rans, making his collegiate cross country debut, spun a time of 18:40.7 to place 20th. Eric Hoffman was just off his pace in a time of 18:43.2 to finish 22nd overall. 

A number of others also made their collegiate debuts as true freshman Will Clark was 37th in a time of 19:28.1 and Matt Leppert was 39th at 19:34.8. Redshirt freshman Wilson Whicker crossed at 19:47.6 and placed 45th. 

Koeppen's squad rested some All-Horizon League performers from a season ago as Mitchell Gits and Alex Ratkovich sat out the meet. 

UC's Alec Sandusky won the race in a time of 17:42.0 and was joined under 18 minutes by Butler's Clark Otte at 17:49.1. Five Bearcats finished among the meet's top nine to earn the team victory. 

IUPUI will return to Northview next weekend when it hosts the Jaguar Invitational on the same course. Teams will compete in an 8,000m race this time around with the men's race scheduled for 6:00 p.m..